Once in the Winter's Tide
by LA Knight
Summary: Memory binds the thread of who and what we are. Frayed, coming undone, the Winter Soldier has to wonder: if the assassin dies, what is left of the man? In the small town of Whistle-Stop, Virginia, as off the grid as he can get, he'll find the answer. But the shadows are still hunting for him... On hiatus until 10/1/2015.
1. One Last Mission

_**Author's Note**__: __hello, everybody! This is my new fanfic for Captain America because wo doesn't love Bucky? You gotta be crazy not to love Bucky. I was mostly ambivalent toward him in the first film, but after seeing him in_ Captain America 2_ and learning his story between films, I knew I had to do something. So here it is! This story is a dual-storyline, one in the past and one in the present, with the present storyline set a year after_ Captain America 2_ and the storyline of the past set in between_ Captain America 2_ and the present. So let's hop to it! Enjoy! Let me know what you think!_

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**Once in the Winter's Tide**

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**Chapter One**

**One Last Mission**

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The concrete wept condensation that slicked down his back as he leaned hard against the compound wall, trying to shove away the searing in his shoulder, the merciless pain in his gut. Blackness pulsed all around him, rife with shards of ice-cold fear scraping beneath his clammy skin. Strange. He'd never felt fear on one of his missions before, except…except in that moment when the support struts on the SHIELD Insight Helicarrier had collapsed, pinning him to the floor. Then death had whispered in his ear like a shadow lover, a serpentine hiss of failure and pain—pain even worse than the new gunshot wound in his gut, pain like the fiery ice of cryo-sleep when his handlers had shoved him into that coffin and sent winter pumping through him like death.

He pressed his hand hard to the ragged hole in his belly. Hot blood spilled over his fingers. For anyone else, it would've been fatal. But he was different from other men, stronger, faster, better. This would heal…but it would also get in his way. He had a mission to complete. He'd sworn after the Insight Helicarrier incident that he wouldn't take on another task, another mission, until he'd made sense of the memories whispering through the back of his skull.

But this one was different. He'd sworn not to take another mission, but he owed a debt to someone. That debt had driven him to this underground compound, to retrieve something invaluable. He wouldn't go back until it was safe again.

Which meant he was going to need help, because he was running out of time.

His metal hand, covered by a black leather glove, reached into an inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small, untraceable cell phone. It had one use and one use only; he'd set it up that way to ensure no one could use it against him. The soldiers protecting his current target didn't have the means to torture the proper code from him, and once a code was sent—correct or not—an EMP surge would fry the phone's circuits and leave it unusable.

The code took mere seconds to punch in and send via text. Then the phone crackled, sparked, and went dark. He stuck it back in his pocket—no point in leaving evidence behind for the guards to discover.

Forcing himself to his feet, he moved on down the darkened corridor, ears and eyes open for enemies, blood soaking his jacket.

**.**

In a cheery, industrial-sized kitchen the ovens had been turned off and were now cooling down for the night. The air was redolent with the sugary, gooey aroma of chocolate chip cookies, the tang of lemon bars, and the sweetness of freshly-made, cooling caramel drizzle. The cookie-shaped clock on the wall ticked to ten-thirty-four. A bedazzled, cookie-dough-brown Smartphone buzzed on a smooth kitchen counter of polished walnut. Slender fingers picked it up and touched the screen. _New text_ flashed across the screen. When the text opened, a message blinked into view.

_Jack Frost is in the hands of the stars_

The message flashed twice before disappearing. Setting the phone down, the recipient moved to the walnut cabinets under the long counter. Opening one revealed several dozen sacks of different flours labeled with multicolored paper blossoms. Inside a white bag with a blue China aster label in the very back of the cupboard, questing fingers drew out a slim, black tablet computer sealed away in a Ziploc bag to protect it from the sack of winter barley flour. Touching the screen brought it to life. Instructions appeared within seconds of waking the tablet and then vanished again.

_Parking garage, Verdiers St. and 4th, Roanoke VA_

When the lights in the kitchen had gone dark and the doors shut, the ovens were cold, the bag of barley flour was back in its place, the cabinets were closed once more, and everything was silent and still.

A green Dodge mini-van pulled out of the parking lot. In the back, two children slept clutching backpacks—one with Elsa from _Frozen_, one with Iron Man. On the floor at their feet was another bag with Thor's hammer. A pack with the dinosaurs from _The Land Before Time_ sat on the bench-seat beside a car-seat holding a sleeping three-year-old.

Up front, a mutant drove with fingers curled tight around the wheel, knuckles white in the passing glow of the street lights. On the passenger seat was the tablet and a Browning Hi-Power with several magazine clips. On the floor was a backpack the mutant hadn't packed or even looked into. The mini-van's tires crunched over the GPS device that had once sat on the dash, destroying any chance that it could be used to track the vehicle.

It probably didn't matter. Once they got to the parking garage in Roanoke, they were getting a new car, courtesy of the person who'd sent the original text message. But instructions were instructions. Lives could depend on obeying them. Precious lives, like the three children sleeping in the backseat of the car.

And besides, it was nearly two hours to Roanoke. Who knew what might happen before then?

**.**

Natasha Romanoff—birth name, Natalya Romanova, codename Black Widow—strode down the hall toward the CEO's office of Stark Industries. The Stark Industries building gleamed like a giant of chrome and white marble with electric cables and high-tech circuits for veins and nerves. The former SHIELD agent smoothed down her black skirt. The point of the somewhat matronly woman's suit, as well as the severe but reserved makeup and hair, was to give off the impression of a driven business woman who focused so much on looking mature and coming across as a corporate threat that she wouldn't know a Glock from a Magnum.

It was all a show for the Stark Industries staff. Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, and their two guests knew very well that Natalie Roman, as she'd been known during her brief stint working undercover at Stark Industries for Director Fury, was nothing if not a threat. A woman didn't become one of SHIELD's best agents on her looks alone.

Her fingers curled around the large, manila envelope in her grip. She'd told a friend of hers that pulling on certain threads might not be a good idea, but Steve had wanted to do it anyway. She supposed she could understand. If it had been Clint, for example, she'd have gone above and beyond what even SHIELD might expect to protect him, to find him, to help him. That was her one weakness, her Achilles' heel. Very few people knew about it. One had until semi-recently been rotting in an Asgardian prison somewhere in a far galaxy, and until two years ago she'd fully expected him to rot there for the rest of his pseudo-immortal life, since Thor hadn't given her the satisfaction of putting a bullet in his head. The other three were people she trusted with the information: Director Fury, Agent Coulson, and Agent Hill. Agent Coulson was dead, so that left two people in the world who knew her only weakness.

The old Natasha might not have been okay with that, but the one who'd saved the world with Iron Man once upon a time, the Avengers, and even Captain America himself…that Natasha was okay with trusting them just a little.

Steve had trusted those same people, and Natasha, with one of his weaknesses: Lieutenant James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes. The Winter Soldier. The HYDRA hitman with the mechanical arm and a mostly-wiped memory. He'd put a bullet through Natasha's lower left abdomen once to assassinate an engineer she'd been protecting. He'd put another bullet through her left shoulder about a year ago, trying to kill _her_ this time. He'd shot Cap in the thigh, shoulder, and twice in the abdomen trying to stop the super-soldier from preventing the murders of over a million people.

He'd also saved Steve from drowning after Steve fell from the Insight Helicarrier.

After that, he'd dropped off the grid. Steve had gone looking for him with a friend, Sam, codename Falcon, former paramilitary rescue. Tasha had it on good authority that so far, Steve hadn't had much luck. That was why he was here at Stark Industries today—asking for help from Iron Man. Except she also had it on good authority that whatever Tony would dig up would be out of date, thanks to the manila envelope in her hand.

Happy Hogan, Stark's bodyguard and chauffer, half rose from his seat beside a television playing an episode of _Downton Abbey_ when she clicked her way into the waiting lounge in her stiletto heels. She just looked at him. Happy was good at his job, and he'd helped her—if you could call it that—take out some goons guarding a warehouse full of important technology back when she'd been undercover working alongside Tony. But Happy wasn't a SHIELD agent, or even a government agent. He couldn't take her. She'd kicked him around the block once when they'd sparred in the boxing ring. So she just flashed him a smile and he sighed, rolled his eyes, and pressed a button that no doubt told Tony Stark she was here.

**.**

The drive to Roanoke had been fraught with tension but relatively uneventful. No one was looking for them…yet.

Swapping out the mini-van for a periwinkle SUV, they'd made it to Philly, where they'd received a black jeep to take to Manhattan—still a wreck after the attack a couple of years ago by aliens or whatever the Avengers had gone up against, but at least it was drivable now.

Now came the hard part.

In the jeep in a metal trunk in the backseat had been four things that had added a fresh layer of terror to the night's adventure: a Smartphone with an Iron Man sticker on the back of it; a Stark Industries issued portable DVD cam-and-recorder; a new black tablet (the first and second tablets had been disposed of at the appropriate drop-off points); and a custom-made, child-sized Kevlar vest. A silver flashdrive dangled from the new set of keys. The moment the tablet screen came to life, the text had ordered, _Parking garage, Stark Industries Headquarters, NY._

And here they were. There had to be some kind of tracker or something in the tablet because as soon as the jeep parked in the multi-story garage, the screen flickered on again and new words appeared.

_Record the message to flashdrive  
Give the vest, flashdrive, and phone to Will  
Put him in the elevator  
Go to safe-house SC-B-554  
Wait for instructions_

Shaking hands obeyed. If the voice in the recording trembled a little, the sleepy children in the back of the jeep didn't notice. Then the jeep backed out of the parking space and drove in search of the elevator.

William Gardner, age five years and seven months, was Iron Man's biggest fan. Maybe that was why he'd been chosen to infiltrate Stark Industries—with a little help, of course. With a hug that squeezed him breathless and a dozen kisses all over his face, he was sent into the elevator. At nine-thirty in the morning, there weren't many people around. He was alone in the elevator.

The jeep didn't drive away until the doors dinged shut.

Feeling very small in his custom Kevlar vest, the flashdrive on a leather cord around his neck and the Iron Man Smartphone clutched in his trembling hand, Will glanced at the phone's screen as tears pricked his eyes.

_Press the 1 button_

Will pressed it. With a lurch that made his tummy jump, the elevator made its descent.

**.**

Tony, Pepper, and Steve were waiting when Natasha strolled into a marbled room furnished in white fiberglass and shiny chrome. She winked at Pepper, who smiled and rose to her feet, arms outstretched as if to hug her.

"Agent Romanoff!" They hugged. If Natasha had been in any business but espionage, she would've considered Pepper Potts a friend. "How are you? Does SHIELD need Tony for something?"

Tony scoffed. "That's not happening. Besides, I heard SHIELD fell apart faster than a shoddy Jenga tower."

"And you sound so disappointed, Mr. Stark," Natasha said, sinking into a chair near the massive chrome desk that Steve pulled out for her. She set the manila envelope on her lap and folded her ankles, tucking them slightly beneath the chair. A prim and proper pose to go with her current disguise. A quick scan of the room showed no SHIELD bugs. JARVIS, Tony's AI butler, must've found the ones from the last plant.

"My heart shattered into a million pieces when I heard," Tony said dryly. "You know what I thought? I thought to myself, 'If Fury's retired, that means I can't bug the crap out of him with my antics. What am I supposed to do with my afternoons?' So, the lovely Agent Romanoff. What are you doing here darkening my nice, shiny new doorway? You can't have Maria back, I like her."

Natasha leaned back in her chair and allowed herself a smile. "You know, I heard Agent Hill was working for you now."

"Former," Tony said. "_Former_ Agent Hill. She's mine now. Part of my security team. How do you say 'I don't share my toys' in Latin?"

"Aw, you remembered I speak Latin."

He shrugged. "It's hard to forget a pretty girl who turned out to be working for the angry, one-eyed sourpatch kid."

The smile got slightly bigger. "So hostile, Mr. Stark. But I'm not here for you. I'm here for him." She nodded to Steve. Sandy blond brows rose and he eyed her with obvious surprise and no little wariness. The wariness stung a bit, but she put it aside. No doubt he thought she'd come to ask a favor on Director Fury's behalf. "I have some information for him."

Steve frowned and sat up a little straighter. Brows furrowing, he said, "You found something on Bucky."

She handed him the manila envelope, smiling a little wistfully when he tore it open and rifled through the series of photos. He looked so hopeful, like a kid opening the unexpected gift at Christmas. As the captain studied them, the SHIELD agent—forget this "former" stuff, SHIELD wasn't going to fall that fast or that easy—started filling him in.

"I managed to trace him as far as Roanoke, Virginia eleven months ago. Then the trail went cold. He went completely off the grid. I thought HYDRA might've gotten their hands on him, put him back in cold storage, but when he resurfaced four days ago, he wasn't keeping to his usual habits and there have been no unclaimed assassinations since some friends of mine spotted him. They haven't seen him in almost twenty-four hours, but I'm not certain that means he's gone back to ground."

Tony leaned over to get a look at the pictures Steve spread across his desk. "Roanoke again," he muttered. "I recognize that intersection, we've got an R&amp;D lab near there. Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love. That looks like someplace in Alaska or Canada, that's part of the boreal forest. And is that the parking garage for this building?"

Natasha offered him a casual half-shrug. "Looks like it."

The super-genius scowled. "JARVIS, is there a reason security didn't pick up on a breach on…What's the time stamp on this photo?" Glancing at the numbers, he growled, "This was _yesterday_, for crying out loud! You know, if I'm going to just douse my money with gasoline and set it on fire, I like to know about it first; what do I pay my security team for again?" He focused on Natasha. "On second thought, maybe I'll give Maria back."

"Don't blame her, Stark. The Winter Soldier is a ghost. He's even gotten the best of me once or twice. The only reason my friends managed to take these photos is because a friend of a friend programmed an algorithm looking specifically for the Winter Soldier's face. And before you ask, yes, he managed to hack security feeds for most of the major cities in New England."

"I want his number," Tony said. "I need to scoop him up before Fury or some other government bureaucracy puts him through one of their brainwashing camps and turns him into an evil genius bent on world domination."

"Not going to happen, Mr. Stark. At least let the kid finish school first. Besides, Mr. Forge doesn't work for the government and probably never will. But that's not important. What are important are these photos. The thing I'm trying to figure out is—"

"Is why he's here at all," Steve interjected softly, staring at the glossy 8"x12" images. "What's Bucky up to? None of these places have any real strategic value and you said he hasn't assassinated or even hurt anyone. But look at him." Steve pointed to the dark but nondescript clothes, the low-brimmed hats, the dark scarves that weren't at all out of place in the middle of March in New England. "He's on a job."

Tasha nodded. "Yes, he is. The question is what kind of job? And for whom?"

There was a beep, a crackle of static from the intercom built into Tony's desk, and a hum as the lights momentarily dimmed before brightening again. Tony frowned at the intercom, Pepper frowned at the lights, and Steve and Natasha eyed the door. Sudden tension prickled along the Black Widow's spine and across her shoulders as she realized that the distant babble of Happy's television show had suddenly gone silent.

She shifted her weight forward just a touch and pressed a hand against her back as if to pop her spine. The outline of her gun was a soft mound under her blazer. She noticed Steve reaching for his shield, which sat on the floor propped against the wall. Pepper reached for her defensive spray and Taser, which—Natasha noted with approval—she kept on a chain attached to the purse near her feet.

A cultured, slightly tinny British voice came through the intercom. "Sir, there's been a security breach."

Natasha pulled out her gun. Pepper grabbed her Taser. Steve picked up his shield.

"What sort of security breach?" Tony asked softly, rapidly pressing buttons on a pad near his computer. "HYDRA? Random crackpot goons? Rival companies who think playing copycat will make them more friends on the playground?"

There was a moment of silence, then JARVIS replied, "It's a little boy, sir."

A longer stretch of silence. Then, "Come again?"

"It's a little boy. Perhaps five or six years old. He appears to be unarmed—"

"Is he a killer robot?"

Natasha shot Tony a look, but he seemed to actually be serious. The disembodied British voice replied, "I doubt it, sir. As I was saying, he appears unarmed, though he _is_ holding a cellular phone and a flashdrive. He's wearing a bulletproof vest."

"Could be a bomb," Natasha said, rising to her feet. Steve shot her a look like he thought she was crazy. One day she'd have to tell him about some of the child assassins she'd met in Russia back in the old days. But for now that would have to wait.

JARVIS said, "I don't think so, Agent Romanoff. I've scanned both phone and flashdrive. They're nothing out of the ordinary except the phone appears to have a microchip inside to render it untraceable. I'm having difficulty following the path of origin to whoever was sending the child instructions."

Tony stood up. "It's a kid and someone's sending him instructions via phone?"

"Yes, sir. The boy appears to be in some distress."

The intercom on the chrome desk beeped. Tony pressed the button. "Yeah?"

"Boss," Happy Hogan said, and to Natasha's ears he sounded more than a little freaked out. "There's a kid out here who says he has to see Captain Rogers like, ASAP. I don't know how he got past security—"

"Send him in," Tony muttered. To Natasha he added, "You think you're gonna need a gun against a five-year-old? Seriously?"

One slim, auburn brow lifted in an elegant arch. "I was shot by a five-year-old once." She waited in the ensuing silence for someone to say something or for the door to open. She wasn't sure what they might say or ask, so she was more than a little relieved when the door opened and a little boy with skin the color of milky coffee and curly black hair done up in a million little braids walked in.

His jeans and Iron Man t-shirt looked liked they'd been slept in, and the Kevlar vest and the kid's hair were both covered in dust. The knees and seat of his jeans were filthy. Tears had cut tracks in the grime on his cheeks. He held out the phone and flashdrive with shaking hands. Made a little whimpering sound as more tears spilled down his cheeks.

"Are you St-St-Steve?" The boy asked, daring to take a small step into the room. Steve nodded, got up. "I'm s'posed to give you these," the kid added as Steve knelt in front of him. He took the flashdrive and phone. Glanced at the screen. Natasha caught a glimpse of words.

_His name is Will. Keep him safe._

Then the screen went dark.

Tony frowned, eyeing the flashdrive Steve handed to him. After a moment's hesitation he popped it into a USB port with a tersely muttered, "JARVIS, scan it."

"Scanning, sir."

While JARVIS worked, Steve put a hand on the kid's shoulder. "How did you get in here?"

Will sniffled and scrubbed a hand over his eyes. "Jack told me how. He said I had to give you a message."

"Who's Jack?" Steve asked gently.

"My friend," the boy said. "He's gonna help us. He promised."

Trying to keep her voice as gentle and cajoling as Steve—she didn't know much about dealing with unhappy children in a situation like this—Natasha interjected, "Help you do what?"

"One file detected, sir," JARVIS said before Will could say anything. "Encrypted MP4 file, no viruses found. Decrypting now. The video should be ready in three…two…one…"

Tony swept his fingers across his desk when lines of blue light appeared on the silvery surface. A holographic projection of a massive computer screen flashed from the desktop to the white wall on one side of the room. A touch of a button dimmed the lights to make the projection easier to see. Onscreen in the middle of a video-player window was a woman's face. Messy, dark auburn hair framed a tired-looking face. Exhaustion bruises shadowed under honey-gold eyes framed by a pair of so-called hipster glasses. Behind her, they could see the interior of a car and three shadowy lumps in the backseat. One of them was Will. One was a little girl in a car-seat who could've been his sister. The third was an Asian girl a few years older than Will, asleep and cuddling a backpack with a bug-eyed snowman on it.

Will sniffled again. "That's my mom and my sisters."

The adults exchanged a glance before Tony pressed _PLAY_.

_"Captain Rogers_," the woman in the video said. _"I don't have a lot of time. My name is Sally Gardner. Please take care of my son. His name is William. A mutual friend of ours, Jack—he said you call him 'Bucky'—told me to send Will to you with this message. Jack said if we ever needed help we could come to you, but he wasn't sure how easy it would be to contact you. We need help, Captain Rogers. This group, HYDRA…Jack says you've dealt with them before. They…_" Tears welled up in the woman's tired eyes and spilled down her pale cheeks. _"They're after my family. Jack said they were recruiting mutants, kidnapping us. They t—_"

She cut off abruptly, glancing over her shoulder, eyes wide. Natasha saw she was actually holding her breath, as if that might help hide her from HYDRA and whoever else might be after her. Turn back to the camera, she said quickly, _"We have to leave. They could be here any second. Jack said to tell you that the rendezvous is at the tipping point. He said you'd know what that meant. He needs your help. And he said to tell you that we'll be waiting at the beginning of the line._" Swallowing, the woman added, _"Please, Captain Rogers. Please help us. Jack said we could trust you. Please."_

The video ended and Natasha, Tony, and Pepper stared at Steve, who'd been gaping at the screen ever since this woman—Sally Whoever—had uttered the name "Bucky." William had latched onto the super-soldier's arm and had yet to let go. Steve swallowed. Squeezed his eyes shut tight once before opening them again. Then he got to his feet.

"The tipping point?" Natasha asked softly. "Do you know where that is?"

Steve nodded. "Yeah. It's where the Winter Soldier saved my life." He shook his head. "But what could he possibly need my help with? Protecting that woman? He could get her off the grid faster than I could."

Will tugged on Steve's hand. "He's gotta get Jamie. The bad guys took him away."

Natasha settled her forearms on her knees as she leaned forward. Still pretending to be as gentle and child-savvy as Steve seemed to be, she asked, "Who's Jamie?"

"My brother."

**.**

He staggered once before slipping soundlessly into the air duct, a shadow along the wall. The vent made zero sound as he pulled it back into place behind him. A brief scan of the rim of the duct showed him no blood marked his passage. Good. He could take an hour, remove the bullet lodged in his belly, and maybe catch a few minutes of sleep before heading out of the compound. He wouldn't make it on his own, so he needed to bring back reinforcements.

Even if the thought lodged like a bone in his throat.

Crawling along the wall on one elbow while he plastered a hand to his stomach, he maneuvered several feet into the duct, turning a few corners, before he knew he'd be relatively safe from detection. Propping himself up and bracing his boots against the opposite wall of the ventilation shaft, he leaned back against the wall and opened his jacket to better examine the wound.

The bleeding had almost completely stopped, thanks to the exacerbated coagulating factor in his blood. Rolling up the black t-shirt sticky with blood, he studied the bullet hole through the single, uncracked lens of his night-vision goggles. He didn't have much in the way of supplies, but he always carried a few necessities. Removing the slug took about ten minutes of teeth-clenching, sweat-drenched pain like a bad dream of fire and acid. When it was over he folded a thick pad of gauze and taped it in place over the wound. If he made it out of here and had some time, he'd patch it up properly instead of giving it a simple field-dressing.

If he made it out…No, not if. When. He would rendezvous with Rogers, fulfill the mission, and get back to Whistle-Stop, and then…Well, and then he had some choices to make. He'd already made a big one: calling in Captain Rogers; the guy who claimed to be his best friend since childhood; the guy he vaguely remembered in a fuzzy, dreamy sort of way. He'd made the choice to trust Rogers with this mission. Once it was over, he had to decide whether he could trust himself with the next step regarding the target and the mission handler.

That's how he had to think of all this—targets and missions and handlers. Anything else would rip into him like icy claws, slicing through the thin veneer of indifference he'd used so far to even accomplish this much. He wasn't James Buchanan Barnes right now, whoever that was; he had no memory of that man. He wasn't Rogers' friend Bucky. He wasn't even Jack, a new name for a new life.

Right now he was the Winter Soldier and he had a mission.

He had to get Jamie back.

For a moment a cold slither of fear snaked down his spine. He clenched his teeth and shoved it away. He was going to get Jamie back. He was going to bring the boy home again. No one was going to stop him. Especially not HYDRA.

A soft vibration from his untraceable cell phone buzzed against his chest. He bit back a sigh and pulled the phone out of his pocket. A message from the enemy flashed on the screen.

_You are running out of time, Winter Soldier.  
In 72 hours, your target will be dead.  
Give yourself up and we might make a deal._

He knew better. HYDRA didn't make deals. He ought to have known—he'd worked for them long enough. Sliding the phone back into his pocket, he let his head fall back against the shaft wall. He closed his eyes. Steadied his breathing. Pushed down the pulsing burn in his abdomen. He'd take ten minutes to doze, a trick he'd picked up…somewhere. He couldn't remember. It didn't matter.

Just before sleep claimed him, he thought he smelled warm chocolate chip cookies. His lips twitched for a split-second in a flickering ghost of a smile.

_Don't worry_, he thought tiredly at the mutant he hoped was at this very moment driving to a safe-house in Ohio. In his mind, he saw the quiet streets of Whistle-Stop, the cheerful storefront of the Van Schweetz bakery. Will's pit-bull lounging outside by the door, hoping for a customer to drop some crumbs. Jamie's bike propped against the wall. Flowers in the store's window-boxes. He could almost smell the freesias. _Don't worry, Sally. I'll bring him back._

And he was asleep, and in seconds was dreaming of the past.


	2. Winter in the Garden

_**Author's Note**__: And here I come to update today...and I look fabulous! So let me know what you guys think of this chapter, okay? Huggles to everyone who's returned for a second chapter, yay! Reviews are love (and they help me figure out where this is going)._

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**Chapter Two**

**Winter in the Garden**

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_11 months ago…_

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Needles of ice drove into his skin, ripping the breath from his body. Cold slammed into him like a slab of concrete. White stars exploded across his eyes, gutted and bleeding into his skull. He flailed at the wall of water pushing him down deep and deeper into the silty blackness sucking the heat from his body. Bubbles spewed out of his mouth, precious air slipping away as he clawed at the dark, trying to climb through…but the cold whispered in his mind, sickening seduction to sleep. The water burned his eyes, he wanted so much to close them, but the darkness…if he closed his eyes, it would take him.

Frost crept across his lashes, snatching the choice away, freezing his eyelids, sealing them shut. He vaguely felt his swiftly-numbing hands slam against a thick slab of ice. No. No, not ice. Glass. He beat against the glacial sheet of glass slowly going misty with the cold. He opened his mouth to scream but more bubbles erupted from his lips, billowing in the black water.

Not bubbles. Steam. The silver vapor of his breath, poisonous as burning mercury, burning his throat and fogging the glass faster, obscuring the chubby-faced little imp with the beatific smile and the beady blue eyes behind tiny, wireless spectacles that he _knew_ was there even though he couldn't see.

Not water flooding his lungs but ice crystals in the dry and frigid air, cutting his throat. He tasted copper and salt, hot blood, freezing on his tongue, on his lips. His fingernails scraped against the fresh, thin layer of ice on the opaque glass. Fire ripped across the top of his middle finger and steam wafted up as blood spilled from the torn fingernail. Metal scraped the ice and glass, a harsh skree piercing his ears.

_Steve_, the name pounding like a heartbeat in the back of his skull, _Steve, help me! Steve, please! Don't let them do this to me! Don't let them do this! Steve! Steve!_ A child screaming in the dark, a man crying silently in the night, the plea went on and on as fire exploded across the surface of his left arm, scouring away the flesh, peeling back muscle and tendon and sinew to reveal the bone, charring down to the marrow. His screams slammed against his teeth, locked in his mouth and cramming into his throat as the ice flooded him, silenced him, suffocated him.

Buried him.

A tear squeezed between the frosted lashes, a single splash of warmth that quickly froze to the chilled skin at the left temple. Pale, blue-tinged lips shaped a name, a word without meaning, an echo of a child's dream. A slender thread to anchor the truth of himself in his own mind.

_Steve…_

A blade of ice cut that thread to ribbons and left him plunging straight down into the abyss echoing with the ghosts of his screams.

**.**

He bolted awake to the discordant screech of a car alarm. The pearl-gray ambiance of false down dared to poke its fingers through the motel room window, past the moth-eaten curtains and humidity-swollen windowpane. Shadows painted the room like a nightmare. The abyss whispered from the deepest parts of the dark.

He tasted copper. Licked his lower lip and realized he'd bitten it his sleep. A thin crust of blood marred the rough stubble he hadn't bothered to shave off. Pushing at the thick locks of bed-tousled hair with his metal hand, he set down the Magnum he hadn't even realized he'd snatched from under his pillow on the nightstand. Blood-red alarm clock numbers limned the dark-painted steel.

Three weeks. He hadn't returned to his handlers in three weeks. Three weeks since he'd nearly died trying to complete the assignment—kill Captain America. Three weeks since he'd been saved by the man he'd been sent to kill. A man who recognized him. A man who shared his long, blurred history.

A man he didn't even remember except in the depths of the nightmares that left sweat dripping down his spine and plastering his hair to his neck, that left blood in his mouth. Nightmares that woke him with a gun cold in his hand and a name he couldn't remember on his lips.

The air-conditioner, he realized with a start. It had come on in the night. The room was a freezer. Throwing back the itchy bedclothes, he swung his bare feet to the floor. Marched to the AC unit and switched it off. Then he moved into the tiny bathroom, filled one of those cheap plastic cups with water as hot as he could stand from the sink, and downed it in gulps that seared his throat. Heat flooded his chest and belly, pushing back memories of ice and darkness.

He didn't mind the darkness so much unless the cold came with it. Then his blood chilled in his veins, ran sluggish as a corpse's, and his heart tried to jackhammer its way out of his chest. But he was all right now. He was fine. He had a task to complete, a goal. Remembering that helped him focus.

Goal number one: find out the truth—all of it—about his connection to Captain America.

Goal number two: if it was possible, get back the memories he hadn't even realized were missing.

Goal number three: don't get killed by either HYDRA or SHIELD.

Supposedly SHIELD had been disbanded in their efforts to take down HYDRA, but he didn't believe it for a second. HYDRA had slipped its tentacles into so many government organizations like SHIELD across the globe, there was no way to eradicate them completely. They were like roaches—impossible to exterminate. Fitting that despite their name, their symbol was a skeletal octopus. And SHIELD wasn't going anywhere either. Not if agents like Nick Fury and Natasha Romanoff had anything to say about it.

The sweat had chilled and gelled to his skin, leaving him sticky, uncomfortable in the sweats and black t-shirt he'd slept in. He hit the hot water in the shower, listening to the death-rattle of decrepit pipes echoing in the walls. Before stripping out of his clothes he retrieved the Magnum and set it on the bathroom counter—just in case.

After his shower, he'd get out of here. Move on. There was a little coastal town about twenty miles down the freeway. He wasn't going to risk hitchhiking, in case HYDRA or SHIELD were closer than even he guessed, but he could hoof it. He'd be there by noon at the latest.

Plan laid out, he filled the cup with hot water one more time and downed it, swallowing back a tumble of words that always slithered into his mouth after the nightmares that had dogged him the last three weeks. Words he refused to speak aloud.

_Who am I?_ and _What's my name?_ and _When was I born?_ and even _How old am I?_

The words writhed in his throat until bile burned them away. Shaking his head, he stepped into the shower and shoved his head under the sizzling spray, trying to vaporize the coldness still crystallizing inside him.

**.**

The late March sun fumbled its weak way through a bank of gray clouds that made cheap promises of an afternoon downpour. He'd been following the highway at a distance, prowling along in ditches and among the trees flanking the interstates running through Virginia. Normally he wouldn't head there from DC if he was trying to hide, but he knew HYDRA. They'd expect him to either fall completely off the grid and run to Cancun or Tahiti, or they'd expect him to stick to DC like a bloodthirsty tick, since that was where _he_ still was. Captain America.

Instead he'd done the smart thing: stayed close, but not too close. Once HYDRA started thinking he really _was_ in Tahiti, he'd go back to DC. But in the meantime, he needed to stay nearby. Keep his finger on the pulse of everything; keep immersed in the blood-thrum of government agencies and conspiracies.

But he couldn't stand the big cities with their cold, gleaming spires and human cattle herding in droves through the subways and streets. Not after that moment over the Potomac. For just a second, dragging the unconscious Captain America out of the murky water, he'd felt _right_. As if he was doing something he was meant to do. He'd never felt that innate rightness in the executions he'd undertaken for HYDRA.

He wanted to recapture that a little, which was why he approached the small town on the Virginia coast instead of hiding out in a major city like Richmond. For the first time since he could remember, he realized he wanted to be surrounded by basic quietude, trees, and the sound of rushing water. Just for a while. So slipping like a wolf through the kudzu and tall grass, he dodged around the sign that read _Welcome to Whistle-Stop! Population: 3998._

_Make that 3999_, he thought as he moved out of the cover of the pine and oak trees. Stepping onto the narrow, two-lane road—a white-washed sign quaintly proclaimed the thoroughfare as Main Street—should've made him feel like an insect under a microscope, but there weren't too many people outside just then. Those that were took a quick glance and looked away, put off by the cap pulled low over his face and the dusty leather jacket, the boots and the black duffel slung over his shoulder. They didn't even know about the weapons wrapped in black canvas and stowed in his duffel, or about the Bowie knife and the switchblade shoved into the specialty sheaths in his boots. People in this town had good instincts. They might remember a drifter coming through, but they wouldn't have dared look close enough to be able to describe him if SHIELD or HYDRA agents ever came calling.

Still, better to get off the main street. He wanted to see if the place had a motel—too small for a hotel—or maybe a house for rent. If the landlord accepted cash, he'd be set for a few days until he decided to move on. His general plan was to circle DC by skirting through the surrounding states until it was safe to go back.

He'd have to be stupid to stay in one place for more than a week at most, though. Of course, the people following him knew he knew that, so if they just so happened to find him wherever he was, he could make the trail look days old, and they'd move off in one direction following his shadow while he took off the other way and escaped.

Honestly, they'd trained him too well. As long as this place had internet and a nearby cell tower, he was a ghost.

Dodging down an alley between a local barbershop called Snips and a small, used bookstore that seemed to double as a computer repair shop and sandwich place with the bizarre name of Jefferson's, he found a minor street running parallel to Main called Grace Ave. He followed that for a few blocks until he stopped in front of the police station. He would've kept walking, but fluttering in the cool, damp breeze coming off the ocean roaring in the background was a poster duct-taped to an iron lamppost. He only noticed it because the duct-tape had a brick pattern and the paper was fluorescent yellow.

_For Rent  
Guest house on private property  
One bedroom, one bath  
Cable and internet included  
No smokers or heavy drinkers  
Must love kids and dogs  
Home-cooked meals available  
Rent negotiable  
Cash or money order only_

There was an address listed with a little map, and a date—three days ago. Unless someone had snatched the place up already, it actually suited him fine. He could avoid the kids and the…dog. He didn't smoke or drink, he needed internet, and paying in cash was perfect. Pulling the flyer off the lamppost, he folded it in quarters and stuck it in his pocket before heading for the address.

**.**

James Gardner was seven years old. His mother usually called him Jamie, unless kids at school made fun of him for being adopted or because his mom was a mutant or because of his twin sister Rebecca. Then his mom called him Ronin because it made him feel cool. And if he was in trouble she always called him "James Stephen Gardner" in her Mom Voice, which was kind of scary.

He liked to tell grownups that being Japanese was cool because that meant he could be a samurai when he grew up. He didn't know why that always made them laugh. He liked school but didn't like recess because kids would push his sister on the playground or call her names and then he and his brother Will ended up getting into fights and the principal always called their mom. Then she'd have to come down to the school and they'd have to explain that some of the big kids from the older grades had called Becky "retard," which was a really bad word, and they'd had to do something. Then their mom usually yelled at the principal.

Jamie didn't like to fight, but he watched a lot of anime and he knew that sometimes you had to fight even if you didn't want to. Even if it was scary. Even if the bad guy was bigger than you. Which is why even though he felt like any second he was going to pee his pants, he kicked Miguel Quintana in knee as hard as he could.

The eighth-grader spun around and punched Jamie in the face. Jamie strangled on a yelp of pain as the big knuckles connected with his eye socket. Black spots danced across his eyes and he staggered back into the waiting arms of Miguel's friend Zack. Four-year-old Will, who was almost ready to graduate from Pre-K to kindergarten, let out a Tarzan yell and jumped on Miguel. Miguel grunted, rolled his eyes, and then slammed his back against one of the metal posts holding up part of the playground equipment. Will let out a harsh wheeze and dropped to the sand like a rock. Miguel nudged him with the steel toe of his combat boot as the four-year-old started to cry.

"No!" A girl's voice. Jamie started squirming hard because if Becky got upset, she'd start screaming and getting scared and Miguel would do all kinds of horrible things to her. When Miguel turned around to tell Jamie to quit squirming around, Jamie lashed out and kicked him in the thigh. Miguel grunted again. Narrowed his eyes. Then he punched the seven-year-old in the pit of the stomach. Zack dropped him when he started heaving. Distantly, Jamie heard Becky shriek, "_No!_"

_Oh, no_, Jamie thought, eyes widening as Becky picked up her lunchbox and swung it at Miguel. _No, Becky, no!_ He tried to get to his feet again, but his knees knocked together and he fell back down. Miguel grabbed Becky by her one long braid.

"Hey, the little freak's trying to help her dork brothers," Miguel said, smiling. Becky hit him with her lunchbox again and he yanked on her hair. She screamed and started crying. "Awww, poor little crybaby. Looks like somebody needs a timeout."

"Leave her alone!" Jamie yelled, finally dragging himself to his feet using the jungle gym bars. His stomach hurt and his head felt funny. He was pretty sure his whole face was purple but it didn't matter. "Leave Becky alone!"

Miguel just rolled his eyes. "Shut up, twerp." Before Jamie could do anything but take a few steps, Miguel had thrown his sister into the open metal shed where the town playground monitors—high school kids who volunteered so they had something nice to tell colleges about—kept the extra special playground equipment like footballs and basketballs and tennis rackets, and he shut the door. Holding it closed, he put all his weight on it.

Becky started screaming, pounding on the metal door with her fists. Miguel pounded right back. Jamie could practically feel his sister's heart pounding, feel how scared she was. He lunged for Miguel but Zack grabbed him. "Not so fast, Mr. Samurai!"

"Becky!" Jamie yelled, kicking and flailing. Will was still crying hysterically from the sandbox. "Becky! _Becky!_"

"Hey."

The voice wasn't loud. It didn't thunder across the playground. But somehow it cut through the sound of Will sobbing and Jamie yelling his sister's name, Miguel laughing and Zack sniggering. Becky continued hammering on the door to the shed and shrieking, but everyone else went quiet as a grownup in a baseball cap and a leather jacket stopped a dozen paces away on the sidewalk.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Jamie didn't know it, but at that moment Miguel made a _big_ mistake. Sneering at the grownup, he said, "What's it to you?"

**.**

He stared at the kids, wondering just what exactly he thought he was doing. This was _not_ his business. Not in the slightest. He had no reason to care what these punks were doing to each other.

But a wisp of memory in a nightmare flitted through his mind. The name _Becky_—but hadn't it actually been _Bucky?_—A boy, scrawny as a skeleton, gasping hard for breath. Almost like someone was trying to strangle him. Blood shone red as paint on his pale lips from a busted mouth and a bleeding nose. His eye was already swelling, black bruises circling a sky-blue iris as hard as steel. That boy was in trouble. That boy needed help. It was _his_ job to help him.

_Becky…_

_Bucky! Bucky!_

That sharp fragment of buried memory lodged at the base of his skull, sending dull pain shooting through his neck and into his head. He'd take care of the little kids and the punks, then head out to this cottage place and see if it was still up for rent.

"What's it to you?"

The thudding pain in his skull sharpened, shards of glass prodding the raw nerves in his brain as the memory flooded each phantom prick with fire. He narrowed his eyes at the tall thirteen-year-old with an attitude problem and a death wish. He imagined what he wanted to say just so he wouldn't have to deal with the kid for the next twenty minutes.

_Look, you've got two choices. You either turn around and walk away, or I shoot you and your buddy in the head and you die._ But he wasn't a murderer. A killer, yes, but he'd never killed children. He'd executed enemies of HYDRA, politicians and scientists working for SHIELD, soldiers and military geniuses. Enemies of his cause.

His former cause.

So just because he might _want_ to shoot the kid didn't mean he would. Or that he would seriously think about it for more than five seconds. Instead he focused on the little tin-roofed shed that shook with the impact of whoever was beating it half to death from the inside. He jerked his chin at the rattling door. He could hear someone—a little girl from the sound of it, unless someone was torturing a cat in there—sobbing so hard she was practically screaming.

"Let go of the door."

Even though he hadn't even so much as looked at the other kid, he knew the instant the other kid dropped the boy who'd been flailing and screaming while trying to get to the kid in the shed. The little boy started for the idiot holding the door closed but he stopped a couple feet away, hands clenched at his sides.

"You let her out," the kid snarled, hunching his shoulders and lowering his head like a bull about to charge. "Or I'll punch you in the nuts and _this_ time, I won't miss."

The other kid—younger, maybe four or five—who'd been weeping in the sand gave a little gasp. "Jamie! You's not s'posed to say that!"

Well, the kid was brave. Had to give him that. Ignoring the adolescent threats, focusing on the jailer, the man known as the Winter Soldier let himself relish the way the thirteen-year-old moron's eyes widened and he shrank back as a fully grown adult stranger approached, murder in his eyes. It took four steps before the kid broke and ran, practically tripping over himself and kicking up a dust cloud as he booked it down the street. His idiot friend raced after him, calling for the other kid to wait.

The door flew open on the next bang and a little Japanese girl stumbled out, scraping her knees when she hit the ground. Then she just sat on the gravel, hands covering her face, screaming as the boy—obviously her brother—rushed over and squatted down next to her. The other kid, whose caramel-colored cheeks were streaked with dirt and tears, hurried over too, scrubbing his face. They were careful not to touch her. The Japanese boy looked strangely grown up as he held up his hands, palm-out, and started smoothing them across the air.

"It's okay, Becky," he cried over the girl's hiccupping shrieks. "They're gone. You're okay. It's okay. You're in your box. Nobody's gonna do anything bad. It's okay. You're in your box. It's safe. It's okay. It's safe in the box."

Those hand motions were strangely hypnotic; the girl seemed to feel that way, too, because her sobs died away as her brother continued moving his hands in the same patterns through the air over and over again. It was odd. The kid never looked his sister in the eye. Neither did the younger boy. In fact, the younger one barely looked at her at all. He just sat motionless on the gravel next to her, with maybe six inches of space between them, watching the boy he'd called Jamie.

When Becky was only sniffling, Jamie started humming. He kept moving his hands and she started watching them more closely. Eventually he stopped and sat down on the gravel. Tilting his head to the side, he glanced sidelong at his sister and smiled. She dropped her gaze to the gravel, but her lips twitched into a small smile.

_What was all that?_ Watching the kids, there hadn't been a moment when Jamie seemed at a loss as to what to do. But what was wrong with his sister?

But the assassin didn't ask aloud. He just called, "You three all right?"

Jamie helped Becky to her feet and nodded. "Yeah. She just got scared. She's scared of the dark and there are spiders in there." He pointed over his shoulder at the open shed. "She doesn't scream all the time. Just about Miguel. He scares her."

"He's mean t'her 'cause she's got HFA," the younger boy said. "That means she's got artism."

"Autism," Jamie corrected. "But she's not weird," he added defensively. "It's only baby-autism. She just gets confused or scared sometimes. And she doesn't like looking at people."

"An' when she's scared, don' touch her," the younger boy added, shaking his head solemnly.

"I'm Jamie. This is Becky." Becky shot a lightning-swift glance somewhere around the vicinity of the assassin's knees. "And this is our little brother Will. He's four. So…so thanks for saving us. 'Cause they were gonna cream us, I bet. "

Suddenly uncomfortable—this whole thing felt like a surreal dream—he shrugged and said, "I don't like bullies." Then he frowned as an echo of another voice, at once as familiar as his own but as strange as the memories shuddering through him at random intervals like mindquakes, murmured the words in his brain.

Movement out of the corner of his eye distracted him. He fought against flexing his metal fingers when he noticed—and it astonished him that they could really be _that_ stupid—the two teenagers who'd been tormenting the three little kids were actually waiting for him to leave so they could start up again. Really? He was standing _right here_. Did they think he couldn't see them? Apparently he had the word _stupid_ tattooed on his forehead. Being underestimated, even by a kid, pissed him off.

But now was not the time or the place to lose his temper over some dumb kids, so he focused on Jamie. "Where do you live?"

Jamie hesitated. "Um…we're not supposed to tell strangers that." The hesitation disappeared when the stranger in question surreptitiously pointed toward the waiting bullies. "Oh. Three-twenty-seven Arandelle Street. Oh, cool! That's my mom's poster," Jamie added when the ex-HYDRA soldier unfolded the flyer he'd stuffed in his pocket to check the address. "Awesome! Are you gonna live behind our house?"

_Must love kids and dogs. Huh_, he thought, eyeing the kids the poster no doubt referred to. Two little boys and a girl with high-functioning autism. Well, at least they wouldn't bother him, if the girl was as afraid of everything as she seemed to be. This…wasn't a real problem. And he was only staying for a few days.

"We can show you how to get there," Jamie said. "Come on!"

Absently wondering if his nightmares had turned into an incredibly bizarre dream—or maybe he'd been drugged and didn't know it? Except he felt perfectly alert—he followed the three kids headed for the cottage that would soon become his temporary secret lair.

**.**

There was no chance HYDRA or SHIELD would look for him here.

He'd been considering that maybe this wasn't the best idea after all—kids could be a liability, and interfering on their behalf like he had hadn't been smart. It would leave an impression on them and their mother, his potential new landlady. He'd been weighing the pros and cons of moving on to a different town when they'd arrived on Arandelle Street and he'd seen the Silly Pastry Garden. Actually the sign was faded, so it said something like S_Y_ PA_RY GAR_N. He just figured, based on the décor, that it was Silly Pastry Garden.

The combined bakery and home sat at the end of the street just before where cracked asphalt melted into dirt pathway and tall grass. A two-story, wooden building with flower-boxes hanging from the first-floor windows and green shutters, hunter green shingles on the roof showing dark against the white-painted wood, it practically screamed coziness and fireside rocking chairs, fresh-baked cookies and tall glasses of milk. Probably a perfect building for a bakery. The aroma of chocolate and something tangy and citrusy drifted from the front door, which had been propped open with a heavy flower pot half as tall as Jamie. Pale green shoots poked up from the dark earth inside.

"Mom's probably hot," Jamie said, glancing over his shoulder at the silent shadow following behind him. "The air-conditioner broke, and it's hot in the kitchen, so she keeps the door open when it's not dark out."

"Da fix-it guy won't come out until next month," Will chimed in, "'cause he's a jerk."

"That's a bad word," Jamie reminded his brother.

Will scowled. "That's what Mommy said 'bout him when he left, 'member?"

"Shhh," Jamie insisted, glancing back again. The Winter Soldier said nothing. A broken air-conditioner in a place as cool as Virginia in March didn't bother him. Whatever heat those commercial ovens were spitting out was nothing compared to the thick, molten air of the Sahara or Mojave Deserts or the jungles of South America. "Don't say that," Jamie added. "The car guy already got mad at you for saying it about him."

The four-year-old snapped his arms tight across his chest and sulked, glaring at the little cobblestone path leading to a trio of steps going up to the bakery door. Still silent, the assassin followed the three children up the path and the steps. A little wooden sign hung on a nail in the wall next to the doorway. The robin's egg blue sign showed an anthropomorphized white rose that beamed cheerily from where it sat on a little mushroom with cartoon eyes, eating what looked like a muffin and sipping from a cup shaped like a tiny daffodil. A speech bubble coming out of its mouth said in big, rainbow multi-font, _OPEN_.

A flicker of curiosity had him flipping the sign over to see the back. The rose was now curled up on the grass beneath a taller mushroom that had been in the background on the other side of the sign; an empty plate with some crumbs and an empty cup sat on the squat mushroom, whose eyes were closed as if it was sleeping. The rose seemed to be asleep too. Instead of the pale, spring-blue background, the sign was painted in a swirl of violet and azure, with metallic stars spelling the word _CLOSED_.

"Mommy likes fwowers," Will said, peering at the spring shoots sprouting out of the big flowerpot being used as a doorstop. "But she says cake is better."

The woman sounded like a twit. Again he briefly considered turning back, but this place was the ultimate cover. No one would think to look for him here. He wouldn't have to leave after a week. He could stay probably as long as a month, rest up, fine-tune the plans for his next few moves.

There was no one behind a wooden counter the color of rich butter-cream, but a low humming came from somewhere. He would've cautiously leaned in just enough to see around the doorframe, but Jamie barged in ahead of him and yelled, "Mom! We're home!"

"We have a peoples with us!" Will added. Becky just marched up to the half of the counter that looked more like a bar, climbed onto a barstool, and dropped her face into her arms. She didn't even take off her backpack or drop her lunchbox.

"I know," a woman's voice called.

The assassin frowned. She knew? He stepped into the bakery and felt the heat crash over him in a wave, chasing away the chilly damp from outside. His gaze darted to every potential exit or entry point. Six tall windows—three standard, three in patterned stained glass—the door they'd just come through, a set of wooden double doors that no doubt led to the kitchen. Potential weapons? Bar stools, chairs, tables, metal and plastic cutlery, stainless steel and glass bakeware, glass dishes.

This wasn't the most secure location, but unless HYDRA decided to launch a missile at the place, he knew he could get out quickly. At least the windows were tinted—probably because they faced east and the sun would've lanced right across the counter into the proprietor's eyes.

Speaking of the proprietor…

She came around the corner, a plate of cookies balanced expertly on the palm of one hand. She set the plate on the counter next to Becky without saying a word to the strange man standing in her kitchen, picked up a cookie, set that on the counter, and pushed it carefully under Becky's arm. Only then did she look at the Winter Soldier with eyes the warm color of honey melting in the sun, shielded by black-framed glasses.

"I wondered when you'd get here," she said. His brows drew sharply together and wariness prickled like icy needles along his spine. His fingers twitched once toward the knives he kept hidden in his boots. His metal hand, hidden by the sleeve of his jacket and a black glove, convulsed around the handle of his duffel bag. The word _trap_ slithered through his brain, poisonous and cold.

But the woman didn't _look_ like a SHIELD or HYDRA agent. She didn't carry herself like one. A pair of faded jeans and a white t-shirt with a ribbon that looked like it was made of multi-colored puzzle pieces didn't exactly scream government agent. The cheap jewelry draped around her neck would've been easy to grab; so would the auburn braid down her back. Maybe the blue and black enameled ribbon pin on the shoulder of her shirt was a recording device. Maybe the gold ring on her left-hand had a poisoned spike in it or had one of those practically-microscopic HYDRA computers in it. But somehow…he really doubted it, even after what she'd said.

"You were expecting me?" He kept his voice warm, friendly. People tended to remember the douche bags more often than the nice guys. He doffed his cap and offered her the barest hint of a smile to keep up the charade.

The woman shrugged and tucked a lock of auburn hair behind her ear. "I had a hunch that my renter would arrive this afternoon. I'm Sarah Gardner, but everyone calls me Sally."

He realized then that the sign on the bakery's front had said _SALLY'S PASTRY GARDEN_.

"Just a second. What," she added, dropping her gaze to Jamie, "the blue devil happened to you, Mister? Does the other kid look worse?"

Jamie heaved an aggrieved sigh. "No. It was Miguel. He locked Becky in the ball shed again!"

Color flared vibrant pink in Sally's face as she glared out the window, as if she was actually looking for Miguel. "That boy is getting on my last nerve," she muttered. "I've called his parents, I've called the principal, I've called the _cops_. I'm seriously considering disarticulating his limbs and feeding them to small, ugly, rabid dogs."

"Can we watch?" Jamie asked, helping himself to a cookie. He winced when he bit into it.

Sally's lips twitched. "That would be a big, big no. Alright, head up to the bathroom, I'll be in there in a minute after I talk to this gentleman, okay? Will, you go with him. Yes," she added as the boys opened their mouths. "You can take your petty bribes of sugar and Crisco with you. Begone. Vamoose. Curl away, my sons." When the pair had gone around the corner and clomped up what had to be stairs, Sally braced her hands on the counter and leaned back. "You scared Miguel Quintana away from my children?"

Wondering if somehow he'd managed to offend her by coming to the rescue, he shrugged. "It wasn't a fair fight, and they seemed like they needed some help. I hope I didn't overstep myself."

She shook her head and glanced at Becky, who hadn't picked her head up yet. The plate next to her was noticeably depleted, though. More than four cookies were missing. Sally danced her fingers over the countertop like pretend spider legs until they were less than an inch from Becky's arm. Two little fingers peeped out under Becky's arm and touched her mother's knuckles. Sally smiled.

"Thank you," she said to the assassin. "People warn you about small towns practically being cults sometimes, like something out of Children of the Corn, but what they don't say is that being a mutant in a big city is even worse. Believe it or not, this is the safest place for my kids." She sighed. "So, you're here about renting the guest house, right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Please don't call me that," she said with a tired smile. "Makes me feel kind of old. Or like I live down south. I'm from New York, so it's a little weird. So a few questions for you before I show you the house. Do you smoke, drink, or do drugs?"

He raised an eyebrow. "You'll just believe whatever I say."

Her smile widened just a touch. "I'm a mutant. Not a very powerful one, so most of the people in Whistle-Stop don't care. But it comes with a few perks. One, I get hunches sometimes. I know things, like when the phone's about to ring and who's going to be calling, or if someone's at the door or if it's going to rain even when the sky's still clear. Nothing big. But my second little talent is, I know when people are lying. It's like a mini superpower. So yes, I'll believe you—if you tell me the truth. Smoking, drinking, drugs?"

"None of the above."

"Are you on the run from the cops?"

Too specific, he thought with an inward smile, but just said, "No."

She eyed him for a minute, then nodded. "Okay. Next question: are you a pedophile?"

His eyebrows snapped together and he stared at her. "_What?_"

One slender, fiery-gold brow winged upward in a lift that practically dripped with a thousand silent messages. "I have four children. If I don't ask, and something happens, I'd be one of those horror flick girls who are too dumb to live. So it's a valid question, considering you'll be living on my property. Oh," she added, an eerie blankness stealing over her face. "And just so we're clear, if you try to harm _any_ of my children in any way, I will kill you flatter than dead. I've done it before."

As inexplicable and really kind of laughable as it should have been—he was the Winter Soldier, HYDRA's top assassin—in that second he believed her. He had no idea what she would do, but he had no doubts at all that if he ever hurt her kids, she would do everything in her power to track him down and ghost him. She probably wouldn't succeed…but then again, he'd thought Agent Romanoff wouldn't have survived his attempt to eliminate her, and she had.

He inclined his head to Sally. He wondered who she'd killed and how she'd escaped prison.

"I'm not a pedophile. I'm not a serial killer. I have no intention of hurting you or your children. I'm not someone you need to worry about, and I'm not staying long. A month at most. I just need a place to stay for awhile."

Folding her arms across her chest, she tilted her head down and studied him from beneath her brows like a snake watching a mouse. Except he wasn't a mouse, he was another snake, a king cobra, and she was just a harmless little garter snake. Still he let her study him at her leisure before she spoke again.

"Utilities are included in the rent; since you're only staying a month, you pay by the week on Mondays. First week's rent needs to be in my hands before you move in, cash or money order. You can opt to have meals with us if you give me enough warning; we always have plenty to spare. I don't allow loud music after six-thirty—my daughter Lori's two, that's her bedtime—and I don't allow swearing around my kids. You can watch what you want in the guest house, there's cable, but if it's rated above Y-seven, make sure I can't hear it outside. You can't walk around outside in your boxers and you can't wear anything out of the house that you couldn't conceivably wear at a preschool. No women, either.

"I allow pets but you need to run them by me first because we have two dogs and five cats ranging around here. That," she added, pointing to a mostly-white cat with threads of gold, brown sugar, dove gray, and black through her fur, who sat sunning itself in the window and licking one dainty paw, "is Starbright. She's our mascot. She's kind of old so be gentle with her.

"At the moment we need someone who can fix some stuff up around here and maybe work the counter because my cashier left on her mission two days ago. I'll take whatever work you do out of your rent fees if you're interested. I don't mind you spending any time with my kids but be careful with Becky." She nodded to the Japanese girl, who'd finally sat up and was now busy pressing the tines of a fork in a line down the center of a cookie, making the tiniest indents. "Will probably told you she's high-functioning autistic?"

He nodded. "She doesn't like the dark or spiders." He shrugged. "Non-issue. I'm not going to bother your kids."

"She doesn't like being touched by strangers, either, so watch it. And she's on a strict schedule and I expect you to respect that. Becky and Jamie are adopted; you got a problem with that, I don't care. Lori's a mutant—she has vertical pupils. You got a problem with _that_, again, I don't care. Find somewhere else to live." She shoved her glasses up the bridge of her nose with one finger. "Any questions?"

The sudden bizarre urge to smile tugged at his mouth. She had _no_ idea who he was. She'd have been terrified if she ever figured it out. But because she didn't know, she had no problem being the alpha here. He could've killed her in six different ways in under a minute without giving her the chance to even squeak, but she was talking to him like an officer to a raw recruit still wet behind the ears. It reminded him of…of…something. It slipped away when he tried to grab it, though. Mentally shrugging it off, he focused on Sally.

"Can I see the house?"

And for the first time she offered him a real smile, bright as the cozy glow from the shaded amber lights hanging from the bakery ceiling. She nodded. "Sure. Just let me take care of Jamie and Will real fast. Oh, uh, sorry, I forgot to ask. What's your name?"

It took him a split-second to decide. Offering his right hand, he said, "Jack Winter."

Too late he remembered Sally's so-called "superpower." But she cocked her head and blinked owlishly at him through her glasses before making what could only be described as a _what the heck?_ face and taking his hand.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Winter."


	3. Pulled in Oh, So Slowly

_**Author's Note:**__ sorry I haven't update in forever! I've been feeling my way through Bucky's mind and whatnot so this took a little while. I've almost got him locked, I think, as of chapter 5 (which I just sent to my beta) so hopefully this will go a teensy bit faster now. Hope you guys enjoy! Let me know what you think, okay?_

.

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**Chapter Three**

**Pulled in Oh, So Slowly**

_The present…_

.

.

_Thok-thok, thok-thok_.

The harsh clacking of jackboots on cement flooring echoed through the vent, jarring the Winter Soldier from the brief catnap. His eyes took mere seconds to adjust to the darkness inside the vent. A wash of red-hot pain swept over him, reminding him of the bullet wounds in his belly and shoulder. The shoulder had been a simple through-and-through; no need for any medical attention, thanks to the serum pumping like fiery ice through his veins. It hurt, and the torn muscle was still tender, but he could deal with it. The belly wound still hurt too, but it was healing well. He'd be fine in a few days.

Jack—after all these months, it was easier to think of himself as Jack than James or Bucky—didn't _have_ a few days. He had to get Jamie. He'd promised…and HYDRA had only gone after the little boy to get to their runaway assassin anyway. Despite Sally's assurances that Whistle-Stop was protected by something beyond the scope of HYDRA and SHIELD, they'd come in the night and shattered the life he'd been trying to build for himself.

The Winter Soldier had a feeling about how that had happened. _Someone_ had betrayed them. Deliberately. Someone had looked a little too close, because the assassin had done something to tip them off to who and what he really was. Maybe for money, maybe out of fear, he didn't know. It didn't matter.

All that mattered was keeping Sally and her kids safe. If he had to blow HYDRA out of the water with a nuclear bomb, he would.

Crawling on his stomach through the vent, ignoring the burn of his wounds, he made his way to the slatted grill that would lead him back to the corridor. This vent didn't open out where he needed to go in order to leave the compound. If he was going to get out of here and make the meeting with Captain America, he had to kick it into gear. Jamie didn't have a lot of time.

HYDRA had chosen their captive well. Will had been with Jack when his brother had been kidnapped because the kid had had a lot on his mind. Growing up with a sister who was picked on as much as Becky was, with his mother being a mutant, and no dad around…it was hard on the kid. HYDRA wouldn't have taken Becky, she was too high-maintenance, and if they frightened her, no amount of threats would stop her from screaming her head off. And no HYDRA agents wanted to deal with someone as young as Lori. But Jamie was old enough and cognizant enough to understand what it meant when a man with a gun threatened to shoot your entire family if you made a sound.

The assassin swallowed something as searing as acid. Seventy-two hours. Three days. He had three days to get that kid back before whatever was wrong with him—and the HYDRA agents holding Jamie had said it had morphed into pneumonia—got bad enough to kill him.

What would that do to Sally?

It had been stupid of him, Jack thought as he caged a groan of pain that wanted to escape him behind his gritted teeth and his black flex-Kevlar mask. He scanned the area as best he could before carefully lifting the grate off the vent. The wound in his shoulder flared. It had been stupid to let down his guard, stupid to let his memories—so hazy back then, so compelling—draw him into the lives of those four kids and their mother. But there was something about the twins, Jamie and Becky, that had reminded him of something. Someone.

Nearly a full week had gone by while he'd tried to make sense of the images swimming through his head like ghosts; while he'd searched the internet for information about James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes, the man he was supposed to be. Every morning he'd jolted awake from the same nightmares of drowning in blackness and then burning to death trapped in blood-streaked ice. Every morning he'd gone outside to try to shake off the cold clinging to him in the aftermath of the dreams and found those ridiculous baskets…

The sound of approaching footsteps knocked the memory to the back of his mind. Reaching for the serrated hunting knife he kept in his boot, he crouched low against the wall, enveloping himself in the shadows of the dimly lit corridor, and waited for the hunters to find him.

.

_Eleven months ago…_

.

The assassin downed another glass of hot water as he moved toward the front hallway. The little one-story guest house—more like a cottage—had nicely situated windows…if you were someone who didn't expect your enemies to crash through the glass at any second, ready to drug you to the gills and drag you back to your ice-coffin. So he kept the windows closed, the curtains drawn. Kept the electric bill low by keeping only a single lamp on every now and then. It wasn't as if he couldn't see in the dark. Being one of HYDRA's super-soldiers had its perks sometimes.

He gravitated towards the hallway every morning because it was the warmest part of the house and he could kill the frigid bite of his nightmares. The two stained glass windows on either side of the door let light and heat in without giving away his position. And there was something vaguely soothing about the geometric patterns done in soft shades of aqua, green, and light purple. It toned down the jumpiness sizzling along his nerves whenever he woke up tasting blood or freezing half-to-death.

Paying the rent for a week on Monday had eaten up most of the cash he'd had on hand when he'd taken off. He didn't dare access any of his accounts, just in case someone had slipped a trace through the internet to try and pinpoint his location based on any withdrawals. He'd have to get a job. Luckily the landlady was hiring.

Taking the cashiering job was out of the question. Giving anyone the chance to remember him was just asking HYDRA or SHIELD to track him down. Or…or the target. The one he'd let get away. That one might be hunting for him to. He wasn't ready to take on that one again.

The question was, what _was_ he supposed to do for the landlady since she hadn't come out and given him a job yet? He'd said he was willing to do some handiwork. It kept him mostly out of the public eye—she lived on the edges of this Podunk town—but he didn't know what needed to be done. Now it was Thursday and-

_Bing-ding-bing-ding. Bing-ding-dong-ding._

Someone rang the doorbell. He hadn't even known the house _had_ a doorbell; there wasn't a button for it. Just a generic brass knocker. The short melody echoed through the house as he glanced through the peephole.

Cue the landlady, he thought, and opened the door. Sally held a familiar-looking basket, all glossy white wicker. She carried it by the handle, which was hooked over three fingers. She lifted it and nudged it toward him.

"Breakfast. I had a hunch the food would be getting boring by now."

She'd been kind enough to stock the kitchen with fresh groceries—nothing much, just a loaf of bread, some lunchmeat, and a jar of mayonnaise with some paper plates and plastic cutlery. He would've considered that a little stingy except he'd noticed her jeans were always well-worn, the broken ear-piece on her glasses had been repaired with thin strips of duct tape, and a nicely-dressed woman who gave off a chilly vibe and carried a briefcase came to the bakery every day after the kids got home from school.

Whoever she was, she was doing something for Sally, and it seemed to cost a good chunk of money. Clearly most of her income went into her kids, running her bakery, and…whatever was going on with the woman with the briefcase. He figured divorce lawyer. Not that it mattered, except it was just one more person he'd have to deal with while he was here.

He wondered briefly if the woman standing in front of him had any idea he'd just unraveled her entire life from glancing out the window perhaps a handful of times in four days. Usually civilians didn't react well to information like that.

"What's in the basket?" He asked, eyeing it. Instinct told him it was safe…but instinct had also told him that the mission to exterminate Captain America was going to be routine, and it had been anything but. He couldn't rely on instinct anymore.

She shrugged. The scent of bread and something unidentifiable wafted toward him. "Breakfast pies—egg and sausage—and some muffins of various incredible flavors. I bake when I'm stressed," she added with an apologetic shrug. "And business is slow today since it's only a couple days before Spring Break. Everyone's packing up to leave, making plans. I'll be swamped Friday evening, though." She affected a mock-shudder. "It's the we-don't-  
feel-like-cooking-before-our-road-trip-or-paying-airport-prices-on-food-so-let's-raid-Sally's-place rush. I might need some help if you're interested in getting some of your rent knocked off."

Feigning the good ol' boy charm he'd used on her when he'd signed up to rent the place, he smiled. "You got anything a little less…customer service? I'm not much of a people person."

She arched a slender auburn brow. "You shy, Jack?" Then she joggled the basket. "My arm's getting tired; you mind?" He took the basket of food, covered by a cloth to keep the heat in. Tipped his head in silent thanks. She smiled. Nibbled on her lower lip as she studied him. He had the sudden urge to shut the door, to put some kind of barrier between them.

He'd had very few dealings with mutants. Sally got hunches. Okay, what did that mean? He couldn't be sure, which meant she was an unknown variable. Not for the first time since dumping his duffel by the couch in the guest house living room, he considered whether he ought to leave at the end of the week. But he wasn't steady enough to think straight right now. Not with these whispers of memory flitting through his head like ghosts playing some sick game of tag. And if he wasn't steady, he couldn't guarantee avoiding HYDRA or SHIELD long enough to put the pieces together.

"I need my air-conditioner fixed," she finally said, but her eyes said something else. Something along the lines of _I know you're hiding something_. But she just asked, "You know anything about that sort of thing?"

Considering he could disarm over two-hundred different types of bomb, hotwire four dozen car models, disassemble and reassemble almost any firearm in under ninety seconds, and he could disable practically any security system that didn't belong to a super high-tech organization like SHIELD—and he could handle most of those, too—he figured he could handle an air-conditioner. Better to fix it for her now so she didn't have to deal with repairing it when the mild temperatures skyrocketed in summer.

"I could take a crack at it. But I thought someone was coming out to handle that for you."

"Miguel Quintana's dad," she said with a smile that would've given a barracuda nightmares. "Not happening unless it absolutely has to since I want to stick him in my industrial blender, press puree, and turn him into Soilent Green Gerbers. Lori still likes the occasional jar of baby apple sauce. So you'll take a look?" He nodded. She relaxed a fraction. "Thanks."

He lifted the basket and raised his own eyebrow. "You only gave me breakfast so I'd fix your air-conditioner."

Her smile flashed bright as the sun peeping through the dove-gray clouds overhead. "Dude. I've given you baked goods in cute baskets for the last four days. My air-conditioner isn't worth that kind of effort."

The laugh that came out wasn't part of his façade. The fact that he _could_ laugh at her sarcasm without having to fake it surprised him. He hadn't laughed like that in…he couldn't remember when.

"No," she continued, "breakfast is because I'm a generous and considerate soul and you seem like a lonely man who will quickly starve if someone generous and considerate doesn't feed you. Lunch and dinner will be for the air-conditioner. Okay? I'll be in the bakery doing my awesome baker-thing. House specialty today is pies. Just come on in when you're ready and ding the bell if I'm not out front. Laters."

Practically pirouetting, she glided down the short steps leading from the ground to the porch. She moved, he realized, like Agent Romanoff. Like the Black Widow. Not so much the lethal, predatory slide but…but there was something there. Something that told him Sally Gardner was very aware of her body and how it moved. A dancer, maybe. A martial artist? Something.

Well, might as well put on some civilian clothes, take in the necessary calories, and then get started. The work would help clear his head enough that he could think. Slivers of whatever knowledge he possessed of the past—knowledge that only existed in his nightmares—was beginning to creep through into the waking world. Once he figured out _how_ to fix the cooling unit, he could turn inward, concentrate on piecing those slivers together, while his body went on autopilot and fixed the air-conditioner.

**.**

It took him maybe twenty minutes to dress and fuel up. Despite the temperate weather, he wore a thin black sweater and gloves. Once it got warmer, he'd have to hit cooler climates to keep his wardrobe from raising red flags. For now he could still hide his cybernetic arm from civilians. Anyone noticing _that_ would automatically stick a big, fat target on his back.

The sign on the door had been flipped to _CLOSED_. That couldn't be right. But the place was deserted when he walked in. There was literally no one inside Sally's Pastry Garden except Sally herself. A wireless phone sat on the counter next to where the woman had her head buried in her arms. Flour sprinkled one sleeve of her floral-print shirt. Her flour-dusted fingers curled together so tightly her knuckles turned white. A silver service bell glinted in the light drifting in from the windows. The sleek, multi-colored cat sat on a bar stool, slim white paws on the counter. When the door wheezed open, the cat turned galaxy-blue eyes on him and said, "Mrewt."

"We're closed," Sally growled thickly from the safety of her arms. The cat turned back to the woman. "Get out."

"I'm here to fix the air-conditioner…should I come back later?" He asked, brows drawing sharply together when Sally raised a tearstained face to stare at him with exhausted eyes. But she shook her head. Wiped at her face. There was a smear of chocolate on her left cheek.

"No," she mumbled. "Sorry." She drew a deep breath, squeezed her eyes shut. She seemed to be pushing everything down, her face pink with effort, but then her expression relaxed and she opened her eyes. "Uh…it's by the back window. Here, I'll show you." Giving the cat a rub between the ears—he could've sworn he heard her say, _Thanks much, Poofy-girl_—Sally came out from behind the counter and gestured for him to follow her around the corner to where an air-conditioner blocked one window. There was a red tool-box underneath. She flicked a hand at the cooler unit. "There."

This was not the woman who'd brought him breakfast earlier. This woman looked ready to give up on everything. But it wasn't his business. Whatever her problem was, he didn't have to time to get involved. He was doing this job so he could make his small stash of cash stretch until he could get out of this town. But he thought of the phone lying on the counter. Thought of two little jerks that made him want to punch them just for their arrogance in challenging him.

"Your kids okay?" He asked before he realized what he was doing. If that punk Miguel Quintana and his little friend had done something to the kids, that would explain why she was so upset. It would also mean he hadn't done enough to put the fear of God into them.

Sally flashed him a wan smile. "They're fine. Thanks. No, I uh…Becky and Jamie had a birthday last week."

Flipping the latches on the tool-box, he didn't look up when he asked, "And this is a bad thing?" Why was he even asking her? He didn't care. Or he shouldn't have cared. He was a weapon, a tool. Nothing more. He didn't have time for feelings, for sympathy.

Except those were all HYDRA lies. He wasn't just their poisoned knife, their hidden gun. He could do what he wanted now because he'd left them. He didn't have to worry about them finding out about this and sticking him back inside that chair that sent twenty-thousand volts of pain ricocheting around inside his skull, obliterating everything that made him who he was. So he could ask whatever question he wanted.

The sound of flesh gently impacting wood told him Sally had dropped herself against the wall. There was a low sort of swishing noise as she slid to the floor and stretched out her legs. She sat far enough away that he had plenty of room. "No," she replied with a sigh. "The birthday's not the problem. But now that she's seven, she doesn't qualify for this program I had her in. She had a private tutor to help her with school and things. I just got a call letting me know that thanks to budget cuts and organization reforms, we don't have the tutor anymore."

"Why does she need a tutor?" It took seconds to unscrew the tiny bolts holding the access panel to the unit in place. He stuck the bolts in his pocket so they wouldn't fall somewhere he couldn't get them.

Sally sighed. "Don't know if you noticed she doesn't talk much?" He shrugged in lieu of an answer. He'd sort of noticed that in the back of his mind. The kids played outside after school; he could hear them over the sounds of keyboard keys and YouTube videos. Jamie's voice was always the main source of noise, and Will after that. Usually he only heard Becky say _yeah_ or _no_. "She hardly ever talks unless she's prompted, at least in public."

"She knows how?"

There was a long silence, and then Sally said, "My daughter's not stupid. She knows how to communicate. She just…I don't know. The doctors said there's a disconnect in her brain somewhere. Part of her autism. She knows the words, she can put them together on paper. She knows how to write, and she can pick out things from flashcards but she won't actually verbalize if she feels threatened in any way." She made a sharp, derisive noise. "I don't even know why I'm telling you this."

"Because I asked," he replied, grabbing for a wrench. He had his eye on a bit of cooling coil that looked odd, but there were things in his way. "So she needs the tutor to learn how to talk."

"Sort of. She needs her for other things. Learning to socialize, that sort of thing. It's hard for people with autism. Humans are predators, right? We're sort of top of the food chain. We don't think like prey animals," Sally said. He held back a snort. Until a little less than a month ago, that had been pretty much all most people were to him. Either prey or inconsequential. HYDRA thinking. But he let her keep talking. There was a low, soothing quality to her voice. He had a feeling she'd perfected that with her daughter. "Autistic people—a lot of them, anyway—their brains are wired as if they _were_ prey animals. So Becky has trouble with a lot of behavior most people think is normal."

"Like making eye-contact," he hazarded, twisting the wrench.

Another sigh. "You noticed that, huh? Yeah. For the longest time she wouldn't look at anybody except Jamie. It's weird. She has a lot fewer problems with him than anyone else, even me. I'm not sure how she feels about you yet." Then she chuckled, but there was almost no humor in it. "Wanna make some money? _You_ could tutor her."

A brief explosion of pain sparked in his foot when he dropped the heavy wrench and it smacked his toe. He twisted to look over his shoulder at his landlady, who sat with her legs splayed and her head tilted against the wall behind him, eyes closed.

"You were kidding, right?"

She sighed. "Yeah, sure, whatever." When he glanced at her again, he saw she'd dropped her head in her hands. "I'm going to have to do it. I just don't know where I'm going to find the time with everything else going on." Tucking her hair behind her ears, she pulled her glasses off and let them dangle between her fingers by the unbroken earpiece. "I have to, though. If she doesn't keep up in school, they'll kick her out because they 'can't meet her needs.' Ugh, I hate small towns. If I just had someone to help me mind the bakery…"

_Hint, hint_, he thought. Yeah, that wasn't happening. Easiest way for someone to alert HYDRA to his presence. Once—just once—he'd gotten caught on that stupid video site, YouTube, because some crazy girl had recorded him on her phone when he'd been in the middle of a mission. He'd _thought_ she was in the middle of calling 911 and so he hadn't bothered to stop her or take the phone.

That had been a mistake. HYDRA had made that very clear after the video had attracted over a million views and comments ranging from how "sick" and "cool" he supposedly was to how "hawt" he was. It still baffled him that women found stone-cold killers attractive, but that little incident had taught him that his face garnered attention and meeting the kind of people—for example, young women like that girl with her video-phone—who came to bakeries for muffins and frappes put him at risk.

"Sorry," he mumbled, because that was what people said when someone unloaded information like this on them. A false sentiment of sympathy most of the time. Well, he _was_ sorry that she had to deal with these sorts of problems. She seemed pretty decent. He liked her okay—which surprised him, because liking people wasn't something HYDRA usually allowed. He forced himself _not_ to suppress the emotion out of habit the way he usually did. He wasn't with HYDRA anymore. He could like something or someone if he wanted, as long as he was careful to keep it inward. So he liked Sally. She'd been kind to him. But that didn't mean he was putting on a frilly apron and bussing tables.

There was no response except a squeak and a familiar "mrewt." A quick scan showed him the elegant cat with the galaxy-blue eyes stretched out across Sally's leg, rubbing her head against the woman's ribs. Another cat—this one a pale cream with golden eyes and a tail like a squirrel—squirmed and wriggled on the floor, glancing every so often at Sally as if for approval or to see if she'd noticed the cat's attempts to be cute.

Sally rubbed the kitten's stomach. "Hey, Custard. Yes, I see you. You're cute and adorable and your tail is so fluffy I'm going to die. Don't you feel awesome?" The kitten purred like a machine.

"Another mascot?" He asked, wondering how she got away with having animals in a place that sold commercial foods.

She smiled. "Nope. Starbright, the beautiful old lady-cat, is our one and only mascot. Aren't you, you beauteous poof-poof?" She gave the older cat's lower back and haunches a vigorous rub. Starbright stretched and closed her eyes dreamily. He had to admit, the cat's back end was pretty fluffy. Sally tilted her chin at the kitten. "But Custard is…special. He keeps the place safe. Let's just leave it at that."

Okay. Whatever _that_ meant.

**.**

He should've expected trouble, even in a sleepy little town like Whistle-Stop. But he hadn't expected anyone to find him so fast, and he hadn't expected to walk right into a trap.

The new cashier arrived a few days later. He looked about college-age, curly brown hair and a friendly smile. He kept a camera hanging from a strap around his neck. Every so often he'd snap a picture of some customer he found interesting or of the carefully plated display goods Sally sometimes set up in the glass display cupboards under the counter. The assassin—Jack, he had to think of himself as Jack; survival depended on immersing himself in the new identity for now—_Jack_ had given the kid one wintry look when he'd raised his camera. Wisely, the kid had put the camera down before someone got hurt.

Jack didn't trust him as far as he could throw him. The kid wasn't from the town; he was on vacation for a while from Manhattan, supposedly trying to "figure things out." He'd mentioned something else about "needing to get away." Yeah, his arrival wasn't suspiciously convenient at all. Instinct told him the kid wasn't what he appeared, but that didn't mean he was SHIELD or HYDRA. Still…

It was the kid's arrival that made him stick around for the entirety of the second week and on into the third week. If he _was_ with HYDRA or SHIELD, letting him know the assassin had made him would bring other agents down on this place. People could get hurt. He might get captured. That wasn't an option. So Jack kept a wary eye on this new guy, Peter, when he wasn't holed up in the guest house watching news coverage on what had gone down in DC. Videos were still popping up on YouTube, people were blogging about the revelation of SHIELD and HYDRA secrets, and a lot of people wanted the Black Widow brought down for treason or murder, depending on their standpoint.

Captain America, Jack learned after a few days of fruitless searching, had dropped off the grid. Jack had contacts that could find him, but only a certain select few of those contacts weren't attached to HYDRA. Those guys were usually called in to dispose of bodies. He didn't want that kind of attention on Steve.

Steve…Jack's fingers hovered the laptop keyboard. He stared at the screen, seeing nothing. It was the first time he'd thought of Captain Rogers as _Steve_. The name sent a pulse through his brain, like ripples in a pond. Images flashed through his mind, smears of color flickering so fast he couldn't make them out. Pain lanced through his temples. For a split-second he could've sworn electricity crackled against his skin on either side of his skull, sizzling through nerve endings and neurons, attempting to blank out the images. He latched onto one slice of memory. Gripped it as his teeth snapped together and blood filled his mouth.

_"You help people, Bucky. You always have. You're just a good guy like that. You never back down when a bully tries to step on your toes, why should I?"_ Skinny kid, short, pale, breathing heavily and blotting blood from a split eyebrow with a handkerchief. Blue eyes bright with brotherly affection. A tear marred the white button-down shirt. Blood sprinkled one cuff. The kid's knuckles oozed blood.

_"Because you're half a foot shorter and seventy pounds skinnier."_

His voice. Was that his voice? It couldn't be, he'd never had a laugh in his voice without putting it there, forcing it there, using it as a mask. He'd never sounded like that. And yet…

Steve. Bucky. He remembered that look of shock, hope so painful you almost couldn't stand it, when Captain America—when _Steve_—had looked at him without his mask for the first time. _Bucky?_ And he'd shot back with, _Who the hell is Bucky?_

How much had HYDRA stolen from him?

_I don't know you!_

_Yes…you do_. He hadn't been trying to fight him off then. Captain America hadn't battled the Winter Soldier. He'd surrendered. He'd laid down his shield, the best weapon he had, and let an assassin take shot after shot at him. The words hadn't been a trick. The assassin had seen the resignation in his target's eyes. He'd known the Winter Soldier meant to kill him and yet…

_I'm with you to the end of the line._

And it was there, teasing him, just on the edges of his consciousness. Knowledge. Memory. He could feel it whispering, calling to him. It would be so simple to get it back. All he had to do was reach out and take it—

_Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!_

The fragment shattered under the hammer-blows of someone pounding on his door. His metal hand convulsed into a fist as he lunged to his feet, still tasting the blood in his mouth from where he'd bitten his tongue. Who was hammering on his door? Who thought it was just swell to come waltzing up his front porch and—

He yanked the door open and froze when he saw Sally with tears brimming in her eyes and her mouth trembling. A bruise darkened the edge of her cheekbone.

_You help people, Bucky_. The words resonated in his skull and a piece that had been missing inside him for too long clicked back into place. The anger roiling in his chest did a sharp one-eighty. Sally wasn't the target anymore. Whoever had put that bruise on her face was. He stared at her as the rest of the memory echoed on. _You always have. You're just a good guy like that._

"Jack, is Becky with you?"

His eyebrows furrowed sharply. "What? No. Why would she be with me? What happened to your face?"

Sally waved that away. "I slipped. Not important. Becky's not with you?"

"No."

She stared at him, golden-brown eyes wide and wet, before she covered her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. She hunched her shoulders. A low sound escaped her, a sound like someone swallowing a sob. Without thinking he put a hand on her shoulder.

"What? Sally, what is it?"

The breath she sucked in sounded like it hurt. "I can't find her," she whispered. "I left her downstairs with Jamie and went upstairs to wake up Lori and Will from their nap, it's Saturday and I said they could play outside." She gestured helplessly to the grassy space between the bakery and the guest house. Jamie was there, wandering through the grass. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called his twin sister's name. "People could _see_ them. And Becky never wanders off places, she doesn't talk to strangers, she'd never go with someone! But Jamie thought he heard me calling him so he came around to the front door and when he went back outside she was gone!" She swiped at her face and drew another shuddering breath. "I thought maybe she was with you. She likes you."

She did? He filed that away for further examination at a later date and narrowed his eyes, studying the grassy lot. He didn't know much about autistic kids in general or Becky in particular, but if Sally said she wouldn't just walk off, then he believed her. But Sally also said she wouldn't go passively with a stranger.

He frowned. "You got any hunches?" He asked, more to buy himself some time to think than because he actually cared or put much stock in that stuff. This didn't feel right. Something about this felt off. The bakery was close enough, Jamie couldn't have mistaken his mother calling him. Someone had called him. Had Becky been kidnapped by someone while Jamie was lured away? Who would want a kid like Becky, even for some sort of sick game? None of this felt right. His instincts were crawling, the hair at his nape prickling.

"Just that I needed to come talk to you so I thought she might be here. Peter's watching the kids."

Wait…talk to _him?_ About this? Why…

His phone buzzed and everything in him went still. His phone shouldn't have been buzzing. It was a new cell, without any bugs or traces or taps from HYDRA. He'd ditched his old one just to escape that sort of thing. No one should've had his number.

"Just a second," he muttered, and pulled out the phone. New text message from a number he didn't recognize. Angling himself so Sally couldn't see the readout, he clicked the text open. It was a long one, and it wasn't good news.

_i'm insulted you didn't recognize me_  
_i read your file i'm a big fan_  
_but you need to do something about the kids_  
_they're your big weak spot_  
_you don't even know this kid_  
_but i bet you'll find me just to get her back_  
_don't know why you want her tho_  
_she's a bit defective_  
_just sitting here looking at hermit crabs_  
_poking jelly with sticks_  
_you got six hours Winter Soldier_  
_and then everyone in town starts hunting you_

And there was a picture of Becky sitting against something dark, squatting on her heels while she peered down at something out of camera-shot. He glanced at Sally, who was staring off into space. She gnawed on one knuckle and tapped her foot. Jack slid the phone back in his pocket.

"Hey, Sally, I'm sorry. I need to go."

She whipped back around. "Go where? I was hoping you could help me—"

"I'd like to, I just…" Six hours. Six hours until everyone started hunting him. Why would that happen? What could the guy do to Becky that would make Whistle-Stop come after him? Whatever it was, it told the assassin one thing—this guy wasn't HYDRA. His ex-handlers didn't want his face plastered all over the news and on the internet. They wanted him as their secret weapon, their poisoned knife. "I have to go."

A tear slipped down her cheek. "But…Jack, not a lot of people in town will help me. They'll just say I should've watched her better. Jack, please I need you to help me. Can't whatever this is…can't it wait?"

Refusing to help would cause problems. Helping would waste his time. He didn't even know where Becky was except…

…_looking at hermit crabs, poking jelly with sticks…_

She was on the beach. Somewhere. But he couldn't tell Sally that because if she found out where her daughter was, she'd no doubt rush off like any normal person would and get both of them killed. No, this person had challenged him. Taken something right out from under the Winter Soldier's nose to taunt him. He needed to take care of it.

And besides, whoever the guy was, he was right. Kids were his weak spot. HYDRA had done their best to beat that out of him but it had always been there, a single thread of defiance. He didn't take out child targets and he didn't use children as tools to take out adult targets.

"Okay," he said, trying not to grit his teeth. "I'll help you look. We'll trade cell numbers and split up, okay?" That way he could hit the beach and "find" Becky before anyone got hurt…except whoever had found him. Even if kids hadn't been involved, even if pride hadn't been involved, the guy needed to die anyway because someone—someone dangerous—had found him. No one in this town was safe if that information got back to HYDRA.

Sally threw her arms around him so quickly he didn't have time to dodge or catch her before she was embracing him. "Thank you," she whispered. "I'm just really scared for her. Thank you."

"Uh, yeah." He carefully maneuvered her arms away once enough time had passed that it wouldn't be awkward. "You're welcome."

They had six hours to find Becky. It would be dark in six hours. What could possibly happen involving that kid that would make everyone in town form some sort of angry mob specifically to hunt him down and try to lynch him? Why would they go after him when…

_Oh,_ he thought with grim respect as he and Sally exchanged numbers and took off down the steps. _Oh, aren't you just so smart? Frame me for Becky's murder. Clever, clever. Well it's not happening today. You might be good at what you do, but I'm better_. But as he split off from Sally and arrowed for the beach, he still had one question nagging at him.

Who had found him? And what had they meant when they'd said he hadn't recognized them?

.

_The present…_

.

A cool breeze sharp with evergreen spice chilled the tacky, congealed blood on his skin as Jack crouched low and moved off through the trees above the underground HYDRA complex. The boreal forest was practically frigid in winter; thankfully it was summer. Forty degrees was nothing for a super-soldier in combat gear. Handgun at the ready, he moved at a steady pace through the trees, logging the landmarks he'd memorized on his way into the compound.

The chopper would pick him up at the rendezvous point when he radioed in using the transmitter in his cybernetic arm. He'd called in a few favors to get an untraceable, military-grade chopper all the way out here in the middle of nowhere, but that didn't matter. Once he was in the air, he could get to DC and find Steve. The other super-soldier would help. He had to.

They were best friends, after all.

It was only a few seconds after the wind picked up, stirred by the chopper blades as the helicopter slowly descended toward the forest clearing, that Jack's secondary disposable cell buzzed.

Sometimes he considered just crushing the things and never buying another one because they almost always brought bad news. This time was no exception.

_We're being followed._  
_Safe houses are being watched._  
_What do we do?_

— _Sally_


	4. Closer Than They Appear

_**Author's Note:**__ sorry this has taken so long. I actually lost this document for a while, so shout out to my roommate for helping me find it! Anywho, enjoy your guys' October! See you soon! And let me know what you think, okay? Reviews are love; enjoy!_

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**Chapter Four**

**Closer Than They Appear**

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_The present…_

.

Steve stared at the little boy with tears rolling down his dirty cheeks. _Jack's my friend…he's gotta get Jamie. The bad guys took him away…_Bucky was out there, looking for a little boy who'd been stolen by "bad guys." What bad guys? HYDRA? The super soldier had known even back when everything had gone down in DC that HYDRA wasn't really gone. But why take this Jamie kid?

Tony posed the question aloud, leaning back against his shiny chrome desk. He wasn't looking at the kid—_His name is Will_—the text from Bucky (it _had_ to be Bucky, Steve thought) had said—but Will responded anyway.

"The bad guys wanna trap him."

"What do you mean?" Natasha asked, still clutching at the nice-lady persona she'd erected once she figured out the little boy wasn't a walking, talking bomb. "Why would they need your brother for that?"

Will scrubbed at his face. It was only when Pepper offered him a handkerchief that Steve realized the five-year-old was trying to scrub the tears away. Sniffling, the kid said, "Jamie's really sick. He's got…um…pamonia. He was at the hospital. That's how the bad guys found us."

"Pamonia?" Tony echoed, brow furrowing.

Pepper's eyes widened. "Will, honey—do you mean pneumonia?"

"Yeah!" Will nodded so hard Steve wondered whether his head was going to pop off. "Yeah, that. He had to go to the hospital. Jack didn't want to and Mommy said it was dangerous but we had to 'cause, 'cause Jamie was so sick. And Jack got scared 'cause cars was following us sometimes and then…" The little boy's face crumpled. He hugged himself and hiccupped on a sob. "Then the bad guys came and Jack tried to stop 'em but they took Jamie."

Then the kid started to cry, big gasping sobs while he covered his eyes with his hands. Steve wasn't sure what to do with a crying kid this young. Not when he was upset about something this big. But Pepper came to the rescue, scooping Will up and setting him on her lap. She hugged the little boy, rocking him slightly as she whispered soothingly to him.

Steve turned to Tony and Natasha. He knew the SHIELD agent would be harder to convince than the philanthropic genius. Tony had no grudges against Bucky, but the Winter Soldier had shot Natasha twice—once in the abdomen and once in the shoulder. Getting her to agree to help him could prove a little tricky.

He should've expected her to beat him to the punch.

"I'll help you with this on three conditions. One, you bring in Sam Wilson," Natasha said. Steve blinked, startled. Tony raised his eyebrows. "Two, you call in the Avengers. At least the ones currently residing on Earth." The super soldier didn't point out to Natasha that it wasn't difficult for him to get in touch with Thor, Loki, and the Avenger that Director Fury was currently codenaming Mirage (in private he called her PITA, and it was obvious to anyone who knew about their relationship what _that_ stood for). Natasha hadn't reconciled Loki's involvement with SHIELD or the Avengers Initiative yet. Not after what Loki had done to Agent Barton. So he kept quiet as she added, "And I fill in Director Fury because you know if he finds out about this from anyone else, there will be hell to pay."

Since he had to admit the sleek spy had a point, he didn't argue. Just nodded. If they had to include SHIELD, so be it. Nick had already promised Captain America that if the Winter Soldier was found, SHIELD's resources would be at Steve's disposal, and the Avengers were granted the go-ahead to try everything they could to bring Bucky in safely.

It was just…no one had ever imagined he would make contact with Steve and the rest of them on his own. If he was reaching out now, when he'd been silent for months, all because of this missing kid…it meant Bucky didn't have a handle on the situation and needed help.

_I'm with you to the end of the line…_

"Do what you gotta do, Tasha," Steve said. "I'll hit up Sam on my way up to the penthouse. Stark." He focused on Iron Man, who quit slouching against the desk and put on his serious-face. Pepper was still soothing a quietly weeping Will. "Stark, you in?"

"Helping a beautiful damsel in distress, possibly getting on Fury's nerves, _and_ surreptitiously flicking SHIELD in the face? Because come on, let's face it—you know it embarrasses them that this Frosty Soldier guy kicked the crap out of them and then got away by dropping completely off the grid for almost a year. Dude, I am _totally_ in. Let's go tell Bruce we've got a field trip today, class!"

**.**

The Boeing AH-64 Apache chopper surged through vertical takeoff with mere minutes of touching down. The Winter Soldier leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. So far they hadn't been spotted. Still, his companion—a black market mercenary whose services as a bodyguard didn't come cheap, but once paid for couldn't be stolen by outbidding from the enemy—hadn't chosen the Apache for nothing. The twin-engine attack helicopter was armed with a nose-mounted sensor suite, night vision systems, an M230 Chain Gun, multi-target capable AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, and (the irony didn't escape him) more than a dozen Hydra 70 rockets. If HYDRA went for them, the Winter Soldier would be ready.

Just as he'd been ready the night Becky had been taken. He'd been prepared for HYDRA during his weeks in Whistle-Stop, and for SHIELD, never stopping to think that maybe his enemies weren't the ones he was expecting, and they might've been closer than he ever suspected…

**.**

_11 months ago…_

**.**

The jutting stones were sharp when they scraped against his black jeans. The pathway down from the rocky bluffs on the other side of town wound through boulders and sloped on sand that threatened to slide out from under his boots, but Jack kept his footing. He was coming this way for a reason. He knew whoever had taken Becky was somewhere on the beach and they'd be expecting him. Of course, since the Winter Soldier was well known among the international crime underground, they would also know he most likely wouldn't approach directly. So there was backup somewhere on the beach. If he found the backup, he'd find the kidnapper.

How to find the backup? He did a quick search on his phone about the Whistle-Stop beach, one of those little known, out of the way tourist attractions. There were only three places along the beach that butted up against dark cliffs - he'd seen that entering the town. One of those was a little sandy cove you had to swim to get to; the place had made the news because a month back, a pair of teenage lovebirds had drowned at high tide. Another was a nesting place for some rare breed of sea turtle and all the egg-laying sites were cordoned off with caution tape.

That left one place where that photograph had to have been taken. The assassin was pretty sure the kidnappers weren't planning to take off after sending him the picture, or else why send that specific picture - with those specific clues, about hermit crabs and jelly? They wanted him to know Becky was on the beach waiting for him.

If he'd been anyone else, he might've been insulted by the first attack. Who did they think they were dealing with?

First warning: sand scuffed against rock, a boot sliding before traction grabbed it.

Second warning: a seagull screamed, the sound bouncing off rock and beach. Not a gull in the air, a gull near the ground. Why? Split-second question, split-second answer - something dangerous near a nest.

Third warning: the stink of brine, sharp and nearly overwhelming, suddenly cut by the smell of stale sweat and metal. Man. Fighter. Weapon. Scents brought on a gust of breeze upwind of the sea.

A click, soft against the shriek of gulls.

Gripping his knife in his right hand, he curled the vibranium fingers of his left. The bang echoed across the sand, bouncing off boulders, as the assassin twisted, yanking his arm up, one hand in front of his forehead. The pain-circuits in his metal hand sizzled as the bullet ricocheted off his palm and embedded itself in a rock. Successfully blocked kill-shot.

_Try again_, he snarled silently as he hefted his knife by the blade and threw it. It spun end over end, winking in the sunlight, before slicing through scrub higher up on the beach. A satisfying _thunk_ reached his ears. The thud of a body hitting sand. _Or not_, he added as he scrambled back up the bank to retrieve his knife.

The body lying on the gravel, limbs splayed and rifle still in hand, didn't look familiar to him at all. Blood trickled from the corner of the open mouth; not surprising, since the assassin's knife had punched through his chest and no doubt flooded his lungs with blood. The blade was wide enough, he'd probably punctured the visceral pericardium, which pretty much guaranteed near-instant death. Good. Stepping carefully around the corpse, he knelt and rifled the pockets of the white jacket. No wallet, no ID. Typical for an assassin. But he found one thing, wedged carefully down in the bottom of a pocket. A white business card with three familiar letters on it and a number.

_**A.I.M.  
(555) 146-1966**_

AIM? AIM was hiring people to kill him now? Why? The techno-terrorists had always been allied with HYDRA. Dr. Zola's little transfer into the gargantuan computer underground had been organized and made possible by AIM's top scientists. HYDRA didn't want him dead, they wanted him _back_…so why let one of their allies send an assassin after him? And how had they found him in the first place?

He wiped the knife on the corpse but didn't resheathe it. Pressing the blade flat against his thigh to keep the light reflection from giving him away, he headed down along the beach. One enemy dead meant he was that much closer to finding Becky and the kidnapper.

Habits had a way of getting people killed, the assassin reflected almost leisurely when the scent of spearmint stung his nose. Movement flickered in the corner of his eye. Adrenaline spiked through his blood like lightning as he ducked the knife slicing toward his throat. A fist thudded hard against his forearm as he blocked the next strike. The knife swiped again, caught the underside of his arm. Pain stung. He pushed it aside.

A single metal punch to the face broke his assailant's nose and several teeth. The would-be hitman dropped to the sand, clutching his bleeding mouth. The assassin stomped down hard twice on the exposed torso, breaking several ribs, driving the breath out of him. A garbled scream tried to escape the AIM soldier. He silenced it by gripping the man's head and twisting sharply once, snapping the neck. He sighed. Two bodies already. He'd have to make a call, have someone come in and clean up after him. It happened that way sometimes. He had someone on tap for that, someone separate from HYDRA - even when he'd been under their thumb, he'd known one day he might have to rabbit - but he'd have to wait to call them. A phone call could be the thing that gave him away to any other thugs waiting to try and take him down.

He just hoped no one found the bodies before his cleanup guy arrived. Luckily the guy owed him a favor, so he wouldn't have to pay - this time. Since he hadn't figured out how to hack into his own bank accounts without HYDRA or SHIELD taking notice, that was a lucky break.

The foot to the face just pissed him off.

The shock of the heel hitting his chin should've done some serious damage to his face and teeth, but the super-soldier serum in his veins dulled the pain to an ache. The assassin caught the foot that had lashed out at him and twisted sharply. The ankle snapped with an audible crack and his attacker lost their balance and fell. They didn't have time to scream before their head cracked on a stone protruding from the sand.

Jack checked the pulse just to be sure, but he could already tell. People had a quality to them that leeched away in death. The third AIM soldier lay with eyes glazed, staring unseeing up at the sky. He stepped over the body and kept walking.

Ocean spray lightly dampened his jacket and jeans as he strode along the beach, wary for another attack. Nothing came. No one was out on the beach. The setting sun painted the sky with blood and fire. More blood-red light stained the sea. If he'd been a superstitious type, that would've made him nervous. Instead he kept a grip on his knife and kept moving.

Sand crunched underfoot. Hermit crabs scuttled away as he came close, darting back into their holes as his shadow brushed over them. The high ground sloped downward and practically disappeared into rolling dunes dotted with grass, olive against the dun sand. More walking as the sun sank lower and lower led him to where the beach began to slope down and the dunes on his right to transform into boulders, then steep hills, then cliffs. The shore curved around the jutting prow of the cliff-face. The assassin didn't slow down, didn't hesitate, didn't falter. And all the while he factored the odds.

What did the kidnapper want with him? His arm? The cybernetic prosthetic was a technological masterpiece. Dr. Zola himself had built it and now that Steve and the Black Widow had succeeded in tricking HYDRA into blowing the not-so-good doctor up, AIM had no way of recreating the piece. Maybe that was what AIM wanted…

Another question: how had they even found him? The kidnapper had said he'd failed to recognize them. That meant they'd seen him, and he'd seen them. So why hadn't he noticed? Was it the new guy, Peter? No, because Sally had left him watching the kids. So who? And how?

They wouldn't kill him without gloating. He knew that much. It was a vibe he'd gotten from the text message. Whoever had kidnapped Becky, they wanted to brag about it first. They'd outsmarted him. They'd outdone him. They'd gotten him to come right to them by taking a little girl hostage.

Oh, wait until they learned their mistake.

"That's far enough, Winter Soldier."

He froze the instant the voice broke the silence, cursing inwardly because he'd been an idiot, he'd been so blind. Of course he hadn't noticed the AIM soldier who'd recognized him. He'd avoided looking to closely at her because…because he'd started becoming fond of Sally. Because he'd tried to keep his emotional distance from her and her kids who managed to pull the fragile shells of so many of his lost memories to the surface. So he hadn't looked closely enough. He'd ignored his instincts.

The woman standing perhaps a dozen yards away held a gun in one hand as easily as the briefcase she carried in the other. It was a Browning Hi-Power, a gun built for a woman's smaller build that still managed to pack a lot of punch. Black matte paint killed its shine. The barrel drifted lazily along the back of Becky's head like a caress.

Becky didn't even seem to notice. She was mounding little piles of sand, scooping up handfuls of water from a tide pool and wetting the sand to hold it together, then stick skinny sea shells and driftwood twigs in them. She was humming the same four-note tune over and over as she worked on her sand-piles, but rocking back and forth, too. He'd seen her do that after she'd escaped the playground shed his first day in town, but she wasn't screaming now.

"Agent Neramani, at your service," the woman added. "AIM liaison."

"You're right," he called amiably, shifting his grip on his knife. He couldn't throw it. Not with that gun against Becky's head. "I should've recognized you. You AIM agents all give off the same vibe."

"Efficient?" She asked with a smile. Her dark eyes gleamed as if this were all a joke.

He forced down the anger sizzling under his skin. They'd come into his place, the town where he'd set up base, expecting to just walk away afterward?

Not. Happening.

"Ruthless," he replied in a voice of icy calm. He gestured with his chin to Becky. "How did you get her to go with you? Mrs. Gardner seemed to be under the impression that she wouldn't go with anyone willingly."

The woman smiled. "Not a stranger, certainly. But her occupational therapist? The woman who's been helping her navigate the difficulties of normal school for the last two years? I know how to get Rebecca to cooperate with me."

That was where he'd seen this woman before - she was the woman in the business suit with the briefcase who always came to the bakery when the children came home from school. She'd stopped coming after he and Sally had talked about Becky no longer qualifying for the program that gave Sally reduced rates on the speech and occupational therapy.

But that hadn't been it at all. No, the woman had stopped coming because she'd seen Jack and recognized him as the Winter Soldier. Had this been her cover? A false life until AIM activated her as one of their agents? HYDRA had dozens of sleeper agents like that all over the world; why not AIM? But seeing the legendary Winter Soldier, the ghost assassin, after he'd dropped so far off the radar a submarine couldn't find him…she'd had to contact AIM. She'd had to tell her superiors. And they had told her to make a move on him using his only weakness.

"Now I'm here, you can let her go." Not that it would be that easy. It never was. But there was no reason not to ask. It wasn't as if this woman didn't know his main priority was Becky.

"She doesn't want to leave, do you, Sunshine?" She smiled almost fondly at the girl on the receiving end of her Browning, who continued rocking. The humming had stopped. "See, the thing is, if she doesn't go to therapy every day, she internalizes a lot. This rocking thing? Playing with the sand? She's stimming; she probably doesn't even know what's going on right now because she's oblivious to everything, locked in her own little world. She probably doesn't even know you're here."

An idea popped into his head. She'd taken Becky because Becky knew her. Because Becky would come willingly. _Quietly_. If Becky started making noise, panicking the way she had the day Jack had walked into town when Miguel Quintana had locked her in the playground shed, what would the AIM agent do? Shoot the kid? But if she shot her hostage, there was nothing to stop him from killing her. Which meant if he could get Becky to understand what was happening…maybe he could get her to react to danger, and if she reacted, it might distract Neramani.

_I thought she might be with you. She likes you…She probably doesn't even know you're here…_

"Becky," he called. The little girl's hands froze in the process of sticking a seagull feather into a sand-pile. Agent Neramani's expression turned brittle; she glanced at Becky, who wasn't looking at Jack but wasn't building her little piles anymore either. She kept rocking, but a little slower now. "Becky, your mom is really worried about you. You understand what I mean? Your mom is really worried."

Neramani snorted. "It's not going to work. She doesn't know you. She's not going to respond to you. She's certainly not going to come to you." The AIM agent kept her gun trained on the back of the little girl's head.

"Becky," he tried again. In his mind he heard another voice, younger than his, a boy's voice, crying, _Bucky! Bucky!_ He pushed it aside and called, "Hey, Becky. You want to go home to your mom, right?"

The little girl dropped the seagull feather and rocked harder. She hugged her arms to her chest. She looked in his direction - not quite _at_ him, but near him - and frowned. Her mouth opened and a wrinkle creased between her eyebrows. She pressed her lips together. "Mommy?"

Neramani's gaze darted between the two of them. "Becky, don't talk to strangers. Don't talk to this man."

"That's right, Becky," he said, inching forward across the sand while the AIM agent's gaze was focused on the girl. "Mommy's worried about you. You need to go home. Can you go home?" _She's on a strict schedule and I expect you to respect that_, Sally had said a few weeks ago when she'd drilled him for information so she could pass judgment on his application to rent her guest house. As far as he knew, the little girl spent her evenings in the house. So…"Becky, shouldn't you be at home right now?"

Becky lifted her head and glanced around as if she'd just noticed where she was. The wrinkle between her eyebrows deepened. She glanced at her wrist; Jack saw she wore a pale blue watch with a grinning snowman on it. She looked around again. "Home," she murmured. She pushed to her feet. "Mommy. Should be home now." She took a step toward Jack.

Agent Neramani cocked the hammer on her Browning and leveled it at the back of Becky's head. "Drop the knife or I kill her now. I've sometimes wondered what the little freak's brains would look like."

The little freak in question frowned fiercely and shifted her weight to the balls of her feet as she began to rock slightly, arms curled against her thin chest. The Winter Soldier tightened his grip on the hilt of his knife. Neramani nudged the back of Becky's head with the barrel of the gun.

"Drop it."

Slowly, slowly, he knelt on the sand. He stretched out his arm. Had to place his blade in the exact right spot, amidst a scattering of slightly larger stones on the sand. The knife, perfectly balanced, didn't tip once he set it on top of one of the stones.

Neramani smiled. Set her briefcase on the sand by her feet. "That was really stupid, Winter Soldier."

Without a flicker of an eyelash, Neramani jerked the gun away from Becky. Her dark eyes narrowed. Even from a distance, the Winter Soldier could see the pupils dilating to take in the light, to focus on him. He braced for the bullet even as the toe of his boot pushed off the sand. Neramani's finger curled tight around the trigger as she swung the gun up, sighting along the barrel.

But the movement startled Becky, who let out a screech like an electrified cat. Neramani jerked as the bullet erupted from the muzzle of the gun in a flash just visible in the deepening dark. The assassin didn't wait to feel the bullet rip into his chest. The tip of his toe caught the hilt of his knife, kicking it into the air. He snatched it right-handed out of the air just as the bullet dinged off his left arm and buried itself in the sand. The blade slipped between his fingers as he stepped forward, drew back, and threw it at Neramani.

At the last possible second she dodged aside. Shock jolted through him along with the adrenaline. What? That was impossible. How had she…?

Not entirely human, he realized as she shot at him. He dove to the side and the bullet whizzed past. SHIELD had a few agents like that - Captain Rogers, for example - but he hadn't known AIM possessed any. Surging to his feet, he lunged for the AIM agent. He collided with her, metal arm first. Felt her ribs crack. Her scream escaped in a wheeze as he bore her down to the sand.

She tried to shove the gun between them, the muzzle pressed to his chest. He broke the finger she tried to insinuate around the trigger. She screamed again as he flipped her on her stomach, shoving her face into the sand underneath them. She flailed, trying to bring the gun around. A sharp backhand with his metal arm knocked the weapon skidding across the beach. Then, adrenaline burning in his blood and fury blazing in his eyes, he slid his hand beneath her head, between the sand and her face. Her neck snapped with a muffled crack and she went limp.

Shuddering, he simply sat there, sucking in sharp, icy breaths. It was cold on the beach now, the sun sunk below the horizon, the moon drifting up from the sea in a crescent as thin and sharp as a stiletto. The Winter Soldier shivered as the rage slowly ebbed. The absence of it left him hollow and sick in the pit of his stomach.

He'd thought he was done killing. He'd thought he was done being forced by faceless organizations into eliminating targets, snuffing out lives. But they'd found him, even here, and forced him to bathe his hands in blood again. He was tired of killing. Tired of missions. Tired of seeing or feeling the life drain from their bodies, leaving empty corpses behind. He was just…he was just so bloody tired.

They'd sent a lab rat to do an assassin's job. How stupid could AIM be? Why had they done it? Didn't they understand just who they were dealing with? He was the Winter Soldier! Even when he didn't want to be.

But no, AIM wasn't that stupid. They wouldn't have sent Neramani alone or even with the three men who'd tried to stop him on the way to getting to her. And they wouldn't have disobeyed direct orders from the AIM Board of Directors. Which meant Neramani had seen him and decided to take him out on her own. Stupid of her but…but instinct said AIM didn't know about his presence.

Yet.

After a few more moments of quiet filled only with the roaring of the sea and his own heartbeat slowly returning to normal, another sound pierced the assassin's exhaustion. It was a sort of rhythmic sound. It started as a soft grunt of effort but melted into what was almost - but not quite - a child's sob.

_Becky_, he realized as he moved away from the corpse. He stumbled on the sand. _Where's Becky?_

He nearly tripped over his knife, sticking hilt-up in the sand. He didn't worry about the gun - it didn't have his fingerprints on it, and cleanup wasn't his job anyway. He had someone for that and he paid them well enough he wasn't worried. Sheathing the knife again, he stumbled toward the sound of weeping. It had to be Becky. At least she wasn't screaming hysterically, though. Had she seen him kill Agent Neramani? Did she even understand that that was what he'd done?

He found her curled up and rocking hard in the sand, her back thumping against the cliff face. Reaching into his pocket, Jack pulled out his cell phone and flipped it open. Pale illumination from the screen revealed Becky's face streaked with tears. Her eyes were wide, the pupils dilated with fear.

"Becky," he said gently. She just kept rocking. "Becky, it's time to go home."

No response. He considered putting a hand on her shoulder, trying to make her hold still, but he remembered what her brothers had said - she didn't like to be touched when she was upset. What had Jamie done when she'd been hysterical before? He'd talked to her, moving his hands in a pattern the assassin didn't quite remember. And he'd said something about a box. Being safe in the box.

They had to get out of here. The gunshots wouldn't alert the authorities - Agent Neramani's silencer had seen to that - but the bodies had to be taken care of quickly before someone came along. And he couldn't afford to let his contact see his face. If the cleaner learned the person he owed a favor to was the Winter Soldier…well, it was no secret by now that the remnants of HYDRA were hunting him. Favor or not, his contact would turn him over.

"Becky, you're safe now," he said, feeling ridiculous. Did the kid even hear him? "Everything's okay. You're…you're in your box, okay? You're in your box." Was she slowing down a little bit? "Everything's fine. It's okay, Becky. It's okay." She _was_. "You're in your box. Nothing's going to happen in your box. You don't need to be scared."

She sniffled. Mumbled something. He couldn't quite make it out - something ending in a hard _kuh_-sound.

"It's okay," he continued murmuring. It felt so strange to just crouch here next to her. Heartless, almost. She was obviously upset and most people hugged upset, crying kids. But he thought again of what Will and Jamie had said. "Becky, it's okay. It's me, Jack. You remember me, right? Becky, it's me."

_Bucky…_That voice out of his dreams. Darkness and pain, a haze of it fogging the world. Couldn't move, couldn't even breathe deep without feeling those straps across his chest like malleable iron bars. BUt that voice. Breaking through the fog. Familiar, but impossible. He couldn't be there. There was no way, he'd left him safe back home. Back home…_Bucky, it's me. It's Steve._

"Jack."

The timid whisper somehow sliced through the flashback, jerking him back to the present. He stared at Becky, who huddled in on herself, rocking still. Her eyes were fixed on the lit phone in his hand.

Tentatively, she reached for it. Whispered, "Lie." He frowned. Lie? But no, she was talking again. "Lie-ight. Lie-ight." Her fingertips touched the glowing screen. She hiccupped. "Light. Dark." Her face crumpled and he realized what she wanted and why she was upset - not because of him, or what had happened, but because of the noise and the unfamiliar environment on top of the fact that it was dark.

"You want the phone?" He asked, holding it out to her after sending two rapid texts. "Here. Take it. If you press the buttons, then no more dark."

She practically ripped the phone out of his hands and held it close to her like a teddy bear. The light turned her face waxy. She stroked the screen like someone petting a cat. "Lie-ight. No…more…dark."

Jack drew a deep breath. "Right, no more dark. You ready to go home?"

"Home?" She echoed without looking at him. She closed her eyes. Shuddered. "Home. Want Mommy."

"Okay," he said, smiling. It felt like his face was about to crack in half. "Okay. Let's go home and see Mommy, okay?" He stood up when she did, and he let her take the first few hesitant steps herself without so much as a twitch from him. She looked around when they stepped away from the cliff. Whimpered. "It's okay," he said, coming to stand next to her. "It's okay. I know how to get back home. Come on. Just hold onto the light and we'll be okay."

She didn't let go of his phone the entire walk back along the beach. She kept stroking it almost compulsively, jabbing the buttons to keep the screen lit as they made their way back to the bakery. Only when they'd finally stepped into the glow given off by the outside lights did Becky relax her grip on the phone. When Sally bolted out through the front door, Becky jogged up the steps and then - to both his and Sally's surprise - pressed her face into her mother's stomach. She didn't put her arms around Sally or sag against her like another child might have, but Sally's mouth trembled and she laid careful hands on Becky's skinny shoulders. A tear spilled down her cheek. She looked at Jack.

"Thank you," she mouthed silently. He offered a nod and started to head around the building to the guest house when Sally called, "Jack?" The hair at the nape of his neck prickled. Instinct again, this time telling him to pretend he hadn't heard her. Telling him not to stop. Ignore the civilian because she was nothing but a distraction.

Except that was HYDRA thinking. He was _done_ with HYDRA thinking.

He turned back.

Sally held the front door open as Becky shuffled through it. The honey-gold eyes followed the little girl inside before fixing on Jack again. She offered him a wan smile. "Do you want to stay for dinner?"

Dinner. So simple. So homey. A whole different world, and yet…He could handle eating dinner with Sally and her kids, right? He needed sustenance, he didn't want to go into town after the fight on the beach - he could still smell the blood from the AIM agent he'd knifed, though none of it had transferred to him - and the food in the guest house was nearly gone.

Free food. It would be foolish to turn down free food. His stomach was making that very, _very_ clear. He'd been trained to ignore the demands of his body when necessary but the super-soldier serum poisoning his blood meant he needed to eat more often than regular humans, so…

From inside the bakery he heard Jamie say, "Mom, did you ask him to stay for dinner?"

"Didja as' him to stay forevers?" Will called.

Sally's smile morphed into a grin and she rolled her eyes toward the open door as if to say, _Kids_. Then she gestured inside. Lifted her eyebrows as if to ask, _You wanna?_

This was probably a mistake, but…well, free food. So he smiled, nodded. Came up the steps to the front door. Moving past her, he caught the scent of vanilla and some kind of flower wafting off her skin. He paused for the briefest second as an odd sensation twisted through his stomach. Sally studied him with her honey-gold eyes but said nothing. He got the weirdest feeling she knew something he didn't.

"You know," Sally said, splintering his thoughts, "there's something about you."

He stopped himself from instinctively leaning back from her as she folded her arms across her chest. The assassin waited for her to say something, but her next question knocked him for a loop.

"You ever see birds when there's a really bad storm?" He shook his head. "We've got a pair of robins roosting under the eaves in the back of the house," she explained with a shrug. Shifting her weight with all the fluidity of a dancer, she leaned against the doorframe. "Thing is, our cats usually attack birds but one time this cock-robin flies into my kitchen window, whoop-bam." She smacked her hands together. "Becky of all people rushes outside in the pouring rain, brings him inside. We take care of him for awhile. It's a bad storm, you know, 'cause we're a coastal town. The power's out for like, four days. And the robin's just chillaxing with us, getting settled, healing up so that when the storm is over, he can leave. Go fly out into nature, flappy-flap."

The term _flappy-flap_ made his lips twitch with an aborted smile. "Okay…?"

She held up one hand. She had long fingers, he noticed, slender. She swished them through the air when she talked in a hypnotic motion similar to what Jamie had done to calm Becky when she'd been screaming.

"Just bear with me. One night, the rainiest night, the robin's going stir-crazy, jumping at everything. We have no idea why, he's just spazzing out. Becky's playing with one of her dolls on the floor by the front door, doing her rocking thing, talking to her doll. We've got the robin in a cage so he can't flap around and get hurt. Well, he figures out a way out of his cage and he takes off straight for Becky."

"Okay…" And? "Why did he try to attack Becky?" And what was she getting at?

Sally folded her arms. "He didn't. There was a black widow spider crawling up Becky's sleeve. She didn't even notice or maybe she just didn't realize that those things are dangerous. She was little enough, the bite could've killed her. But the robin swooped in and took out the black widow before it could bite her. Then he flutters back into the cage like nothing ever happened. Next day, the storm ends, sun comes out. Robin flies off. But the funny thing is, he comes back every spring to chill with us for a bit. He didn't forget what we did for him…and I'll never forget what he did for her. But sometimes I wish he hadn't just taken off like that. I wish he'd known that he was always welcome here. That we would've liked him to stay."

He didn't move. Didn't so much as twitch. He wasn't sure…he couldn't be certain…but…

"Someone took Becky," Sally murmured. Adrenaline spiked like liquid lightning through his veins. Sally locked eyes with him. "Didn't they? She didn't just wander off, someone _took_ her. And you got her back."

The assassin had no idea what to say to her. She would catch a lie. She'd let him get away with lying about his name but this? She wouldn't let him get away with lying about this?

"What makes you say that?" He asked. Decades of experience and over two hundred missions had given him the ability to bluff with his voice. If not for Sally's mutant gift, he would've just made something up, but even with her gift he could still believably feign nonchalance.

She cocked her head to one side, eyeing him. "You're bleeding," she said flatly.

It was only then that he registered the blood trickling over his wrist in a thin dribble. One crimson bead clung to the tip of his gloved finger, trembling, while it decided whether to fall or not. He'd forgotten about the slice across his arm. He opened his mouth, unsure what he intended to say. Sally held up a hand.

"I'm not going to make you answer any questions if you don't want to. Just tell me if my kids are in danger. And let me take care of whatever's bleeding. I know first-aid."

He had no idea why the words made him laugh, but he found himself chuckling. First-aid. She had no idea what he was capable of. He could remove a bullet from pretty much any part of his body, set his own broken bones, relocate dislocated limbs, but she knew first-aid and so she was offering to help him. There was something bizarrely refreshing about that. But he just said, "The kids are gonna want their dinner."

Her smile could've peeled paint. "And their mom wants answers. Funny how I suddenly just became mistress of the universe, the queen whose desires are paramount to the order of things."

"As far as I know," he said, trying to suppress a smile, "the kids aren't in danger."

Sally hesitated for a moment before nodding. "Let me fix you up."

He didn't need her help. He didn't need any awkward questions. But she'd said she wouldn't force answers from him. If she asked him something and he didn't want to answer, he didn't have to.

After a moment, he canted his head. She gestured him into the bakery, following him and letting the door click shut behind her.


	5. Afraid of What's Inside

_**Author's Note:**__ so here we go with the next chapter! Woot, woot! Just so you guys know, I try to update no less than once a month. With my Marvel fanfics, I try to do it more often, but right now I'm working on an original novel and really trying to get it completed before the end of the month, so it's eating up my ability to work on fanfiction (especially since my beta has carpal tunnel - not to mention a life - and can only do so much editing). Anywho, so that's what's up with that. So hope you guys enjoy and let me know what you think! And don't hate me at the end._

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**Chapter Five**

**Afraid of What's Inside**

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_11 months ago…_

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The kids were oblivious, happily parked in front of the television watching something about a Hawaiian kid talking about a fish and a bunch of girls in hula skirts. The kids were practically glued to the screen. Jack wasn't sure what they were watching and he didn't really care enough to find out. While the kids ate in the upstairs living room, Sally sat him down in the dining room. She angled herself at the head of the dining room table so she could keep an eye on the four kids. Becky sat ramrod straight with her eyes fixed on the screen. Jamie sat next to her, mimicking her position. Lori and Will, however, were playing with…were those plush Muppet toys and plastic action figures?

Sally popped open the clear plastic box containing the first-aid kit and laid out cotton balls, hydrogen peroxide, bandages and gauze. She eyed him as he slowly pulled off his glove. He never took off his gloves. Hopefully she didn't ask him to take off the other one, or worse, remove his—

"Jacket needs to come off," she said in the tone he'd heard her use with her children and with Peter, the new cashier, more than once. "I can't see how bad it is with you wearing that jacket."

His jacket covered what little of his metal arm remained visible beyond the hem of his shirt sleeve. He couldn't take it off. She would see…his arm. The ice cold, inhuman reminder of what HYDRA had twisted him into. Sometimes, late at night when the darkness pressed close and tasted of ice water and silt, he could still hear the harsh whirring of the saw blade as Dr. Zola's butchers hacked off what little remained of his left arm.

He didn't realize he'd clenched his fists until his knuckles popped. He twitched—more like a spasm—when Sally laid careful fingertips on the back of his right hand, flesh to flesh. Her fingertips were soft. They smoothed ever so lightly over the back of his hand, whispering over the light dusting of hair on his knuckles, brushing over the tiny scars.

"It's okay," she murmured so low the children couldn't hear. "Jack…whatever it is, it's okay."

He opened his mouth. Closed it again. There was no way he could tell her why he couldn't show it to her, why it wasn't in any way okay for her to see what they'd turned him into. Fragments of the man known as James Buchanan Barnes were slipping through his consciousness every day, needling through his brain, and it was all so far removed from what he was now…Cold tried to crawl through his veins like killing frost, but her fingertips skimmed over his knuckles, gossamer heat. He swallowed. Tensed. He didn't know her. Or he barely knew her. He couldn't trust her, even though he liked her. Even though she was a good person. Because how did you tell someone you knew intimately, let alone someone you barely knew at all, everything that made you screwed up in the head? It was so simple, this ability to take his jacket on and off, but HYDRA had made it more because without the long sleeves he was vulnerable, obviously something more and less than human, and—

Sally's other hand touched his hand.

His left hand.

He felt that touch through his glove, felt it in the cybernetic wiring programmed to transmit sensory stimuli to the nerves in his shoulder and on into his brain. Synapses fired wildly at this sudden, unexpected, inexplicably _gentle_ touch. He hadn't been touched like this—gently, without pain—by another person since…since…

He couldn't remember. The last time someone had touched him at all had been aboard the Helicarrier during that final fight with his target…no, not a target. With the Captain. With…And then before that was when the HYDRA scientists had shoved him back in the examination chair, put in the mouth guard, and tried to fry what was left of him into nothing. Before that, Pierce had backhanded him hard enough to snap his head sideways. Sometimes he wondered about Pierce. Wondered how a regular person could be that strong when they were that old. Wondered what would have changed if instead of submitting to the blow, to the mind-wipe, he'd lunged out of the examination chair and snapped Pierce's neck like a toothpick-

"Jack." Sally's voice, soft as a snowflake, cut through the sudden spike of fury. He shot his eyes to her face. There was a look of fierce concentration there, like she was listening hard to something very far away. The worry in her eyes surprised him. But she didn't say anything other than, "Take off your jacket so I can look at your arm. You need help; I can smell the blood from here."

Hardly knowing why he did it, how he could trust her with the secret—with his heart beating in his throat and threatening to choke him—he shrugged out of his jacket.

The slice across his arm burned; it was deeper than he'd realized. It should have closed by now, though. The serum should have mended it. Unless it _had_ mended what damage it could, and the cut had been a lot worse than he'd realized. His black, long-sleeve shirt hid any bloodstains, but the sleeve was stiff across his forearm. And she could smell the blood? _Smell_ it? Even with the serum in his blood enhancing his senses, he couldn't smell it.

To his utter shock, Sally only glanced once at his metal arm before folding back his right sleeve so she could look at the cut. He twitched away from her. She scowled at him.

"Stop that. Gimme it."

"Don't pretend it's not there," he snapped before he realized he even meant to speak. Her eyebrows slid slowly up her forehead. It was easy to read the _huh?_ in her expression. "My arm."

She shrugged. "It's prosthetic. So? What, is it new?" She shrugged again. "Doesn't bother me. A guy a friend of mine went to school with has one kind of like it."

He stared at her. "Like…mine?"

"Sort of. Not quite as sleek, but pretty close. It has a bunch of gizmos and stuff in that he can use, though. Like a can-opener and whatever. It's kind of ridiculous. Very Inspector Gadget. Now," she added sternly, "give me your arm."

He didn't protest again as she reached out to him. He frowned, though, when he noticed strange marks in the soft flesh at the bend of her elbow. They looked like small, round, flat scars or bruises. Track marks. Why did Sally have track marks? But he didn't ask. It wasn't his business. Instead he let her take his arm back. She finished moving his sleeve out of the way. Smears of blood stained his skin. Sally didn't speak as she ripped open an antiseptic wipe and started cleaning the cut. The antiseptic stung in the wound but Jack ignored that, focusing on Sally's crisp, professional motions. It wasn't a deep cut; it didn't need stitches. He wondered what she would have done if it had. Taken him to the local clinic? Whistle-Stop was so small they didn't have an actual hospital.

"You know I've never seen you smile," Sally said suddenly, very quietly. She unrolled some gauze and snipped it with a pair of medical scissors.

Jack frowned. "Yes, you have." He'd been sure to give her a smile occasionally so she wouldn't remember him as a jerk. She'd be more likely to rant about him if a HYDRA or SHIELD agent started asking questions if she thought he was a jerk.

Her eyebrow popped up again. "You know how I can tell when people are lying to me? I can tell with facial expressions, too. I can tell when they're sincere and when they're not. I've made you laugh for real a few times but even then…the smile? It never touches your eyes." She taped the gauze to the long knife-cut. "Speaking of lies, don't tell me one. How did this happen?"

"I thought you weren't going to ask me any questions."

"I said I wouldn't force any answers out of you," she replied. "I can still ask you stuff."

He cast around for something to say. Chancing to see the ever elegant Starbright lounging on an ottoman next to the living room couch, he said, "Didn't anyone ever tell you that curiosity killed the cat?"

Sally's lips curled into a smirk. "And satisfaction brought it back. Bet you didn't know that's how that saying ended, did you?" Her smirk melted into a smile as she finished taping up the wound. "Look, you barely know me. I barely know you. And you don't have my inner radar to tell you I'm not some psychotic ax-murdering circus freak or whatever. But I've got a hunch that you need someone to talk to. And sometimes it's easier when it's a stranger. So…" She shrugged. "I'm here, I guess. It's like a trade. You fix my air conditioner, I'll be your pseudo-therapist."

Pulling his arm back across the table—and why did that feel like some sort of retreat?—he said, "I don't need to talk to anyone. About anything." Remembering that he was trying to be the friendly neighbor guy, he added, "But thanks. And thanks for patching up my arm. I think I'll eat down in the guest house." Forget the free food. This was starting to feel too intense, too…intimate.

"No problem. Jack…" Sally hesitated, eyeing him like she was trying to figure out if poking him too hard would make him explode like nitroglycerin. Finally she said, "I know you said you'd only stay a month at most, but…but don't take off, okay?" His brow furrowed and he stared at her. "I mean…you don't need to leave because of…because of this." She gestured to his arm. "It's nice having you here. I may not find such as easy person to rent to, like…ever." She smiled shyly. "So stick around, okay?"

Baffled, he mumbled something like, "I'll think about it," because he couldn't figure out what else to say, and then he got to his feet and shrugged his jacket back on. The kids were still mesmerized by the television. "About my arm and who did it…the kids aren't in danger. Let's just leave it at that."

She studied him for a long moment before nodding. "Okay. As long as my family is safe, then okay."

"It is. Okay. Good night," he said a little stiffly. "I'll see myself out."

But Sally just kept smiling. "Okay. Good night, Jack."

At the head of the stairs he stopped and turned back to her, suspicious of something. "Why won't you demand any answers? Why are you just so accepting of the fact that I'm keeping secrets from you?"

Her smile widened. "That would be _my_ secret. Trust me—it's a pretty good one. I've got a few. Stick around long enough, I might even tell them to you one day. Good night."

**.**

He didn't leave the next morning, even though he should have. He opened the front door to scan the lot surrounding the bakery around dawn and found one of those white wicker baskets on the porch, full of breakfast foods. The lights were on in the bakery and a few young people were trudging up the steps, muffling yawns and huddling against the early-morning chill. Students from the local high school, he realized. Sally had told him once that she made a killing off the kids who came in for hot muffins in the morning.

It wouldn't hurt to check through the stuff in the basket while he planned how to get out of town. Chewing on a blueberry muffin situated at the top, he considered his options. He'd waited too long to leave without the customers seeing him. Maybe slipping away in the dead of night tonight would work best.

_Stick around long enough, I might even tell you one day_…

What did he care about Sally's secrets? She was probably just screwing with him to seem more mysterious. How many secrets could she possibly have, a civilian like her? She wore her heart on her sleeve. Her face was pathetically easy to read.

Except she kept making him ask questions he hadn't found the answers to yet. How did she do that?

Supposedly she'd killed someone before. She'd said it a little playfully at their first meeting, but at the same time, he'd known she was dead serious. She had a secret that kept her from demanding too many answers he couldn't give her. Where was he going to find another landlord like that? One who didn't complain that he hardly ever came out of the place he was renting? He had lied about his name—_and she knew it_—and yet she still let him pay in cash supplemented with heavy lifting and a bit of maintenance.

This place was ideal, despite the AIM agents who'd been put here. AIM operated in sleeper cells of approximately three to five people. What if there was still one here? He couldn't just pack up and leave after taking out four of them. What if they tried to kidnap one of the kids again to get to him? Sally had his number, and a tech-agency like AIM would be able to figure out if she had a way of contacting him.

How had his life suddenly gotten so complicated? Leave to avoid messy entanglements with the locals but put a bunch of kids at risk or stay and risk being found by HYDRA and SHIELD and still potentially put the kids at risk…He'd been here three weeks. Just three weeks.

He should've left at the end of the first week. Well, too late now. Stay or go? And go when? He'd have to leave eventually, he couldn't just settle down here. HYDRA was looking for him. They weren't going to stop. He couldn't have a normal life.

But there was something about this place…not the town itself, but the bakery. The guest house. Sally. Something that whispered _safety._ He just wasn't sure why. His instincts should've been going crazy at the thought but they weren't. Did she have some kind of hypnotic mutant ability? He'd read about a woman like that who'd used her powers against a powerful man in the US military, nearly killed him. Was that what it was? Or maybe she was drugging his food. No, the serum pumped up his metabolism enough, his body would burn through any sort of drugs. That was why HYDRA hadn't been able to sedate when they'd hacked off his arm and grafted the cybernetic one to his body.

Metal fingers convulsed, crushing the last bit of muffin into blueberry mush. He dropped it to the kitchen counter and stared at his cybernetic hand. A prosthetic, she called it. She hadn't even been fazed. It was like it wasn't even there for her. And that hadn't been a show; her indifference had been a hundred percent real.

What _was_ it with her?

He had to know. He had to determine if she was some kind of threat. He had to find out what her deal was, why she was so mellow about his very not-normal lifestyle despite his proximity to her children. She was obviously very protective, so why didn't she worry about him? And those marks on her arm…they told a secret about her, one he couldn't unravel just yet.

The assassin couldn't leave. Not yet. He had to figure Sally out first. Just in case.

**.**

A week went by. Another. A third week, and a fourth. Sally never mentioned Becky's kidnapping and the police never came by to talk to anyone. His contact must have come through, disposing of the bodies before they could be discovered. Jack continued to keep mostly to himself but he always kept an eye on Sally whenever the upkeep and maintenance she required of him brought them in close quarters. What was the secret she hinted made her so understanding?

Her days were fairly mundane. She ran the bakery, played with her children, managed to squeeze in some tutoring with Becky every day while Peter-the-new-guy worked the register. There was nothing to indicate she had any sort of secret. Googling her, searching the net, even sifting through various government databases—such as the local DMV—yielded very few results regarding Sally's history. She'd spent her formative years in Alabama but run away when she was twelve. The next time she'd shown up was a year later in Manhattan, enrolled in a private school called Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters. Not surprising; the place was a front for a non-government mutant training program run by one of the most powerful telepaths in the world. It had been on the target list for the Insight-Helicarriers two months ago.

Sally had graduated with honors at eighteen and dropped off the face of the planet for more than half a decade before suddenly reappearing in Whistle-Stop, married, and with two kids—Becky and Jamie. What she was doing for the six years she was off the grid, he had no idea. But there was no reason to think, with her limited mutant abilities and lack of prodigious knowledge, that she'd been recruited by any type of intelligence agency. So what had she been doing?

The questions revolved around and around in his brain as he wiped the sweat from his face and fixed the last new shingle in place on the guest house roof. He'd discovered a leak two days ago and Sally had promised him two weeks off his rent if he fixed it so she didn't have to call the repairman—Miguel Quintana's father, the local jack-of-all-trades. Climbing down the ladder, Jack brushed off his hands and scanned the grassy lot surrounding the house and the bakery. It was late, almost seven in the evening. The place was dead, since it was right between the after-school rush and the influx of elderly night-owls. Sally had promised him dinner when he came in for the night, so…

The overhead bell jingled merrily when he trudged through the door. He wasn't tired or sore like a normal person would've been after an all-day roofing job, but he was mentally exhausted from running his brain in circles. He popped onto the bar-stool Becky usually took and lightly slapped the shiny service bell on the bakery counter. As he'd expected, the place was having those twenty-minute stretches where nobody came in. They happened on certain days at certain times; Sally always seemed able to anticipate them somehow. She always said it had to do with her "hunches."

"Bell hop," the baker in question said, poking her head through the swinging doors that led to the kitchen. They were painted with cheerful flowers and vines curling up along the edges, and something green that might've been a giant beanstalk. "Hi. All done? You didn't have to finish the whole thing before you came inside."

Jack shrugged. "I don't like unfinished business." He paused, frowned.

Unfinished business. He still had some waiting for him in DC. Steve was waiting. He knew the super-soldier was looking for him. The former para-rescue, Sam Wilson—he was helping. He wondered if the other man still held a grudge over the way Jack had so briskly ripped off the high-tech flight wings Wilson had been wearing. Didn't know. Didn't matter. His business wasn't with Wilson. His business was with Steve. Before he could complete that business, though, he had to finish his business with the ghost of James Buchanan Barnes, which had so rudely taken up residence inside his head.

Instead of dwelling on that, he asked, "What's dinner? I'm hungry."

She folded her arms across her chest, but she was smiling. "Can I maybe get a 'please' or something in there, Mr. Neanderthal?"

He cleared his throat. "My apologies, ma'am. May I please have some of your delicious cooking now that I've risked life and limb to fix your roof?" He frowned when her eyes widened and a surprised grin flashed across her face. "What?"

"You made a joke," she said, looking like she'd just discovered a pot of gold. "A real one. You actually tried to be funny. You never do that."

Baffled, he replied, "Yes, I do."

But Sally shook her head. "No, you don't. Not in the seven weeks you've been here." He had to fight the jolt of adrenaline that flashed through him. Seven weeks? He'd been here for seven weeks? And HYDRA _still_ hadn't found him? Showed no signs of even coming close to sniffing him out? Sally added as she brought out a plate, "It makes me kind of sad, actually."

Jack focused on her. "Why?"

Setting the plate on the counter in front of him, she said, "You just seem sad, is all. I wish I could fix that. That's what friends do for each other, right?"

Only decades of training and conditioning—reinforced by whatever they did to his brain after the mind-wipes, before the vicious burning freeze of cryo—kept him from reacting to that statement in any way that would embarrass him. Instead he dropped his gaze to the plate of food she pushed toward him and cleared his throat before managing to mumble, "Right." Then he frowned again. "What is this?"

"They're panzerottis."

He raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that a car?"

Her coolly arched brow was as disdainful and slashing as a knife. "That's a Maserati, you heathen infidel. Beware—the gods of culinary goodness will hunt you down for such blasphemy."

"This looks like a turnover. What's in it?"

"Mozzarella cheese, ricotta cheese, tomato sauce, mushrooms minced and lightly sautéed in garlic butter sauce, shredded Italian sausage, spinach, and teeny slivers of pasta," Sally rattled off, looking immensely pleased with herself. "Inside a crust made of pizza dough. Guess what? It involves dough, we make it. You would know that," she added a little sourly, "if you were a little more social and came in here to eat more cupcakes like a normal person."

"The world does not revolve around cupcakes," he replied with a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Lifting one of the half-circles of salted panzerottis, he bit into it. Deliciously hot sauce, melted cheese, and all the other stuff she'd put in the thing flooded his mouth. He barely managed to suppress the appreciative noise trying to escape him.

Most of the time, even now, he still couldn't push away the myriad of memories of Pierce and his other handlers taunting him with simple things. A sandwich. An apple. A glass of milk. It was easier—but not easy—to lower his guard a little around Sally, she'd shown him over the last weeks that she had no intention of doing anything to him, but still…there was always that catch. The line drawn in blood, carved into his bones, that separated the Winter Soldier from Bucky Barnes.

Bucky wouldn't have hesitated to wolf down the food and then shower Sally with compliments. The Winter Soldier held him back, allowing him only the words, "This is really good. Thanks."

She shrugged. "I try. And yes, the world absolutely revolves around cupcakes." Her eyes slid to the fifties' style jukebox propped against one wall, all shiny chrome and art deco style. "Hmmm. I hate the quiet." So did he, but he said nothing as she went to the music player, dug a quarter out of her pocket, and punched in a selection. A chorus of guys making bird noises in falsetto filtered from the jukebox's speakers. Sally grinned and spun around, doing a little dance. "Love this song!"

"What is it?" Jack asked after trying for a full minute to place it. It was old, obviously. Something he would know? No, it didn't settle into his head like a memory. It slipped past him, around him. He might have heard the song once or twice, maybe, but not before the mind-wipes.

"'Rockin' Robin,'" Sally replied, swinging her hips and bouncing on the balls of her feet. Her auburn ponytail bounced in time to the music. Jack found himself smiling as he watched her. "'A pretty little raven at the bird band stand taught them how to do the bop and it was grand!' I can't believe you don't know this song. It's awesome. It came out like, in the fifties I think but I heard it on _The Muppet Show_. Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem did it."

"Doctor who?"

"That's a TV show," was her random response. "Don't tell me you've never seen Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem?" He shook his head. "The Muppets?" Another headshake. "Kermit the frog?" He shook his head again. "You've been here for seven weeks and you've never paid attention to what my kids watch on TV? Huh. Well…what kind of musical groups _do_ you know?" Bracing her palms on the countertop, she hoisted herself up. Twisting around, she settled atop the counter, situated so she could see him while casually swinging one foot against the wooden paneling. She leaned on one hand. "Nightwish? Billy Idol? ZZ Top? My Chemical Romance? Disney?" He had to shake his head at every one. "Nothing?"

He wasn't sure what made him say it, but without conscious thought his mouth formed the words, "I like music from the thirties and forties." The decades before he'd been transformed into a mindless killing machine that only obeyed orders. He actually didn't even know if he liked music from that era, but he knew Bucky Barnes did. So wouldn't he? If he _was_ really Bucky Barnes, they had to like the same things.

In the back of his mind, a tiny voice insisted this would be easier if he went to Steve. Steve would know what sort of music his best friend liked. He would know if Bucky had ever had a panzerotti before and whether he'd enjoyed it as much as Jack was enjoying Sally's right now. He should know those things, but…but he couldn't trust Steve to give him the truth. Not when it was so easy to see the stain of guilt shadowing the other man's eyes. Whatever had happened between them, Captain America felt guilty for something, and until Jack knew what that something was, there had to be a wall between them.

Sally drummed her fingers on the counter as she considered his answer. "Thirties and forties, huh? Hmmm…" She perked up. "Oh!" A snap of her fingers and she hopped off the counter, dashing to the jukebox as it fell silent, the song over. She popped in another quarter and punched a couple buttons.

Jazzy trumpets and brass music filled the bakery's front room. They rattled the pieces of his past, slivers and fragments in his head. A few of the pieces jumbled and tumbled against each other. One clicked into place and he realized he knew this song. "Moonlight Serenade." He knew this song. He _remembered_ this song.

Sally spun back to him with a grin. "Come on." Slipping around the counter, she hurried up to him and took his hand. "Get up. No one's coming in for a little bit, I can tell. Come on."

"Come on…where?" He asked dazedly, still trying to process the fact that this song echoed with familiarity in his head. "What are we doing?"

She grinned. "Dance with me."

"What?" He instinctively twitched out of her grasp. Where had this come from? Eating food she'd made for him was one thing—he knew by now she wouldn't poison him, and it was better than anything he could scrounge up on his own—but dancing wasn't something he'd ever expected her to ask him. "Why?"

One slender hand gestured gracefully to the jukebox. "Because the music is incredible. Ella Fitzgerald is one of Becky's favorite singers. Her and Steam Powered Giraffe."

He blinked. "Steam Powered _Giraffe?_"

Sally waved that away. "They're a group. Anyway, the song's slow so even though you're probably tired, it won't kill you. What's wrong?" She cocked her head, studying him. "You look uncomfortable. If you don't want to, that's okay. Just say so. It's fine."

"I…" _Don't want to_. The words hovered on the tip of his tongue, but he knew they were a lie. He did want to. Why? Because it was the complete opposite of what Pierce and Zola and the others at HYDRA would have wanted him to do. Because dancing was something far, far removed from killing. Because he knew this song and he knew somehow that once upon a time, before electric-hot agony and brutal winter, he'd danced to it. He could _feel_ the knowledge of it, memories surging deep beneath his skin like blood. He couldn't touch them, couldn't see them, but he knew they were there. So he took Sally's hand. "Sure. Why not?"

Her smile flashed as bright as a falling star streaking across the sky and some of the tension eased out of his body. Not all of it, but some. This wasn't a problem. This wasn't a fight or a danger. This was resistance. This was free will. He had the choice to dance with someone if he wanted to. He could try to reclaim a piece of his memory if he wanted. She wasn't going to hurt him for trying any of those things.

Some of his confidence faltered when she glanced down at his hand and started tugging on his glove. "Off. This needs to come off."

He pulled away again. "Don't do that."

He curled his fingers into a fist to stop himself from wiping the palm of his left hand on his thigh. Not because there was something unclean about her touch, but because his glove was coming loose and someone had almost pulled it off. A tiny bead of sweat chilled against his temple at the thought.

Sally frowned. "I thought we were past this. I don't care that you have a prosthetic arm, Jack. I want to dance with you. What are you worried about? I'm not going to freak out because you're touching me with metal."

She might. She had hunches, didn't she? She knew things intuitively. Would she know that this arm, and all it represented, made him a monster? A killer? Her hunches had been the main reason he'd been leery of living here to begin with. What if somehow she figured out what this…_thing_ made him?

"Does it really bother you that much?" Sally asked so softly he barely heard her. He didn't say anything. You didn't admit weakness in HYDRA. Not unless you wanted pain. He'd hidden how much the cybernetic arm sickened him for decades. But Sally just offered him a sad smile. "Okay. I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable. I didn't mean to. Do you still want to dance?" After a moment's hesitation, he nodded. Her smile became just a fraction less sad. "Great. Give me your hand. I promise I won't mess with your gloves."

It was so strange, he thought as his left hand curled slowly around her right hand. This metal hand had crushed men's throats, stopped bullets, punched through concrete walls, ripped the doors off a thousand vehicles. It had never touched something so carefully before. His right hand settled against her waist. The warmth of her body radiated through his gloves. The synthetic nerve endings in his cybernetic limb processed that warmth, the vulnerable softness in his grip. He could hurt her so easily and she had no idea. He didn't want her to know. He wanted to be normal while he could, before the hunt for him picked up again.

His body knew what to do even though his mind couldn't remember the steps. As Sally cupped her hand around his shoulder, his body began to sway to the music. The rhythm was slow, easy. He'd done this before. His body knew. It was so strange, the feeling both alien and familiar. Sally stepped closer, hesitant. He forced himself to smile. He wanted to dance. He wanted to remember.

_"I stand at your gate and the song that I sing is of moonlight.  
I stand and I wait for the touch of your hand in the June night.  
The roses are sighing a moonlight serenade…"_

She matched his rhythm, humming along to the melody. How had this gone before, when he'd been Bucky? When he'd been so perfectly, mundanely human? What was supposed to happen during a dance like this? Instinct suggested things he wasn't sure were true, and memory whispered at the back of his mind. Why could nothing be simple? Not even a slow dance?

He'd taken Steve dancing with a pair of girls more than once, he recalled suddenly as the music played on, the song starting over. They'd done that a lot, even though Steve always claimed none of the girls were quite the right partner. The girls didn't much care for Steve, either. Not surprising. It took a lot of people time to see the hero hiding inside that skinny little kid from Brooklyn who never backed down from a fight. Steve was stupid. Steve was a punk. Steve was braver than almost anyone Bucky had ever known.

_Don't do anything stupid until I get back…How can I?_ Steve's voice, a ghost of an echo, weighted down with resigned anger and worry. _You're taking all the stupid with you…_And Jack had…no. _Bucky_ had smiled and said, _You're a punk._

And he'd walked away from Steve, from his family, from Brooklyn, from his home and his life, and gone to Europe to fight the enemy, to protect people, to stamp out the so-called bullies slaughtering people across an entire continent. And he'd snagged on the poisoned razor wire that buffered the enemy lines, tripping and falling with the rest of his men, and Dr. Zola and the Third Reich and HYDRA had taken him and made him into something he'd thought Steve and his family would have never recognized.

But Steve had recognized him. Steve had _found_ him. Saved him. They were more than friends, they were brothers. Always had been. Steve had always tried to protect him, even when he'd been that skinny kid and Bucky had been able to take care of himself. But Steve couldn't take care of him anymore.

Sally's arm was touching his arm now. She'd moved a little closer. He realized he'd touched the edge of his jaw to her temple without thinking about it. This wasn't dancing anymore, even though they swayed back and forth with the song that had started to replay. How many quarters had Sally dropped in that jukebox? Didn't matter. Let the song play, then. They weren't dancing anyway. They were…holding each other. Why? Why didn't he pull away from her? Who had started this, anyway?

He had the unsettling feeling that he'd been the one to bridge the space between them first. His hand wasn't at her waist now. He'd slid it around her waist, his hand splayed across the small of her back. Between his first startled breath at that realization and the next, Sally laid her head on his shoulder and sighed, contented, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Another sigh, and she murmured, "This is nice."

"Yeah," he replied softly before he could stop himself. "Nice."

They didn't speak again as the song carried on through its bridge, _Let us stray till break of day in love's valley of dreams. Just you and I, a summer sky, a heavenly breeze kissing the trees_. They simply swayed to the music, tuned into each other's rhythm. Images flickered behind Jack's eyelids when he closed his eyes. Images of girls, beautiful in their makeup and dancing dresses, eager to be in his arms while the music played. Names danced in his head. Memories flitted by like birds swooping low before fluttering away.

Finally Sally said, "I want you to stay, Jack." He didn't say anything. His silence was a poignant question that he didn't want to ask because he was wondering if maybe he should've said _no_ when Sally had talked about being friends. What kind of friend could he be? He had to leave sometime. Seven weeks was too long. Not just sometime—he had to leave _soon_. But…"I don't want you to go."

"Sally…" He didn't know what to say.

"I get lonely, you know?" She didn't pick her head up from his shoulder or change her position in any way as she spoke. Her breath brushed against his neck, soft and warm. "I'm surrounded by normal people. Non-mutants. They're scared of me. I can't even do anything that impressive because…well, it doesn't matter why, but I can't. I'm so sick of people being afraid of me. But you're not scared. You don't come out of your man-cave much but I can tell you're not."

Then she fell quiet, but he knew somehow that she didn't expect him to say anything. He wasn't going to stay and she knew it. That hadn't been the deal when he'd arrived and that wasn't going to change unless someone presented him with some new information that made it the best option.

They weren't friends—not because he didn't like her, but because he couldn't let himself dwell on how much he liked being around her. She made him feel normal. Human. Which was dangerous with HYDRA breathing down his neck. He couldn't let himself enjoy the normalcy of living in that quaint little guest house, eating baked goods every morning fresh from the oven, playing Mr. Fix-It all the time, and feeling a knot of tension in his chest loosen a little every time Sally smiled at him. He couldn't do that. He couldn't let himself be…

Happy. He couldn't let himself be happy. And in the weeks he'd spent here in Whistle-Stop, he _had_ been happy. He hadn't felt anything close to happiness since…since before his new life had begun in blood and pain. He was happy but HYDRA was taking that away from him once again.

Swearing silently, Jack disengaged himself from Sally. He kept his face carefully expressionless when he murmured, "Thank you for the dance."

Her smile wobbled when she replied, "My pleasure."

"If you don't mind, I'll take those panzerotti out to the guest house and finish eating in there. The night-owl crowd should be due soon," he said. His tone was as blank as his face. "Don't want to get in your way."

Sally sucked on her lips, something he'd seen her do when she was agitated and trying not to show it. She gave him a smile that looked forced and nodded. "Sure. Good night, Jack. Oh, uh, one of the ovens is acting up. Can you take a look at it tomorrow when you've got a moment?"

Sure. He could do that. It would be the last nice thing he did for her before he left. Because he had to leave. It didn't matter how he felt about it, if he stayed much longer he had no idea what would happen.

Happiness didn't factor into it.


	6. Screams in the Night

_**Author's Note:**__ and here we go with the November update, yay! Sorry it took me so long, I was the main leader for my team on a project at work for Halloween. It was fun, but time-consuming. Anyway, let me know what you guys think of this chapter. Hope you like it! Hope you had a safe Halloween!_

_\- LA_

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**Chapter Six  
Screams in the Night**

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_10 months ago…_

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That night he dreamed of skeletal trees as black as rotting flesh, a moon as white as bones cutting a gallows' smile across the black sky. Whiteness spread in a smothering blanket across the ground. Jack—no, not Jack, he wasn't Jack here, he wasn't the Winter Soldier, he was Bucky, he was James Barnes—Bucky slogged through the snow dusted with black ash. He was following the trail of char like burnt breadcrumbs, the scent of gingerbread tickling his nose.

The scent of baking was important. So important. It meant…something. He staggered after it, fingers numb with cold and locked in a death-like grip around the stock and butt of his rifle. He tripped over jutting tree roots squirming across the snow like black tentacles. He fell, bit his tongue. Copper burned in his mouth and he tasted blood.

Follow the breadcrumbs. Find the source of that scent. He trudged on, alone in the night. Sometimes the corpsely moonlight lit up shards of broken glass scattered across the snow. Black drops of something thick and oily stained the dead whiteness under his feet. Grease? But it smelled like salt and rust. He didn't want to think about it. He had to keep walking.

In the distance, the glow broke through the trees. Warm, golden, sweet. So close, yet so far. Twenty yards maybe, or thirty. He could sprint that. He could make it.

Gathering his strength—but he was so tired, the exhaustion burning in his legs even though Zola's experiments weeks ago had pretty much put an end to that sort of fatigue, he was still so bloody tired—he gripped his rifle tight and ran. The snow yanked at his legs, those tentacle-roots reached up to trip him, but he didn't falter. He simply kept his eyes fixed on the light. Home. Was that home? It was safety, anyway. Rest. Sanctuary. A place to stay and recoup. To lay low and heal. He had to get there. Then he could breathe again.

So close now. So close. Just a few more yards and he could see the house. There was a house, he _knew_ there was a house, it had to be there, he…he remembered it. He remembered…it was _there_.

"Sergeant Barnes."

That cold, oily voice. All the charm of a dirty politician and the venom of a snake. Bucky tripped, staggered. His leading foot crunched through a crust of ice and he pitched forward. No, no! There was snow there, snow to hold him up…but there was only gaping darkness and the roar of water below. The river…and behind him, Dr. Zola. The whir of the bone-saw shrilled in his ears. Fire smoldered under the flesh of his left arm from fingertips nearly to his shoulder, hot enough to char bones. He screamed as the skin split and blood soaked his sleeve.

_Steve…Steve!_ The snow had turned black as rivulets of blood ran down his arm, trickling steadily at first and then flowing, flooding, gushing to spatter the snow. Dizziness swept his feet out from under him. He slowly sank down to one knee as the snow, black in the darkness now that his blood had poisoned it, began to crawl over his legs, slide up his body. Tiny slivers of ice sank deep into him. Pumped him full of burning cold that crystallized the blood still seeping from his veins. _Steve! Help me! Steve!_

"It will all be over soon, Sergeant Barnes," Zola crooned gently and those hands, sickening, violating, laid on his shoulders. "Don't worry. When you awake, you will be HYDRA's masterpiece. Their most valuable asset."

_Steve!_ He was trapped in the cage of his own skull as the snow crawled over him, devouring him. He screamed in his mind, the desperation ricocheting like bullets off the walls of bone. _Steve!_ And in the distance he heard more screaming. Someone else. A child sobbing in pain and fear. A kid…there was a kid…he had to help them…had to find them…or tell Steve, because the snow held him frozen…_Steve!_

It had reached his neck now, sliding up over his chin, creeping along his neck. It forced its way into his mouth, up his nose, choking him, freezing the breath in his chest. Suffocating him. He gasped, choked on ice crystals. Splinters of ice cut the inside of his nose, his mouth. He tasted icy water and blood. And still he screamed for Steve because he knew, he _knew_ that if the snow covered him, if it buried him, Bucky Barnes would die and there would only be the Winter Soldier in his place.

_Steve!_

And the child was still screaming as the black sludge that had once been white snow crawled across his eyes and left him drowning in darkness.

**.**

Jack bolted awake, icy sweat pearling on his skin and skittering down his spine. He jerked upright, gasping. He'd never had a dream like that before. Usually his dreams—his nightmares—were memories twisting together into some hellish tapestry, not…whatever that had been. He gulped air and dropped his face in his hands. He'd stopped recoiling from the chill touch of his cybernetic arm a few weeks ago. Running his fingers through his hair to shove it out of his face, he sucked in a deep breath. Let it out slowly. Took another. Blew it out. Forced his thudding heart to slow to a somewhat steadier pace.

It was only then that he realized he could still hear a little kid screaming. Not just any little kid. Lori, Sally's two-year-old. It was coming from the living space above the bakery.

Sally…

Adrenaline raced through his veins as his mind turned cold and clear as a diamond. The entire world shifted into sharp focus as he pulled his Glock out from under the pillow he'd dropped onto the living room couch for himself. He didn't sleep in the bedroom upstairs; that was a good way to get killed if his enemies ever caught up to him. Curling his fingers around the familiar grip of the gun, he rose to his feet with the silent, fluid grace of any predator.

His steps were soundless as he moved to the back of the guest house, avoiding every creaking floorboard that might sound the alarm. It took seconds for him to shrug on his jacket; the moon wouldn't be able to reflect off his pale skin or the vibranium of his cybernetic arm. He slid like a shadow through the smallest possible gap between the back door and the door frame, careful to keep it from slamming behind him. Then the assassin started off at a low crouch across the grassy lot between the guest house and the bakery.

He kept low, giving the streetlights a little ways off and the moon overhead no chance to silhouette him and turn him into a target begging to be shot. Grass crunched silently under his bare feet as he headed for the bakery's back door. Strange. The dogs—Pupcake, Dug, and the bizarrely named Somewhere—slept on their backs beside the stoop. Usually the dogs slept upstairs with the children. Were they breathing?

Dug, the paler of the two golden retrievers, grunted in his sleep and kicked his hind legs. Somewhere, whose coat shone like polished bronze in daylight, whined softly in his sleep. Pupcake rolled over, flashing his white belly. They weren't dead. When he took a step onto the steps leading up to the door, Dug's head jerked up and he looked right at Jack. He wagged his tail. The floppy ears pricked. Jack could read the dog's thoughts easily.

_Hi, there_. The retriever made a terrible guard dog.

Jack laid his hand briefly atop the dog's head to appease it so Dug wouldn't think he needed to bark to get Jack's attention. Then he tried the doorknob. Locked. He had a key. With excruciating slowness he inserted the key into the lock and turned it. The tumblers clicked softly as the lock disengaged and he eased the door open. Lori's screams echoed off the interior of the building; the assassin heard Sally trying to soothe the toddler. Sweat dampened the back of his neck but his palms remained dry, his hands steady, as he slipped into the bakery and headed for the stairs leading to the second floor.

He'd just set his foot on the third step when Sally called from upstairs, "Jack, we're up here. It's okay, we're fine."

Shock leeched the icy fear from his blood, leaving a wash of heat flooding through his body. Stowing the gun in the waistband of his pants, hiding it with the back of his jacket, he hustled up the stairs, every instinct on high alert. If they were fine, why was Lori screaming like that? Every shriek was laced with pain and panic.

At the top of the stairs, he took in the scene in front of him.

Becky rocked herself on an ottoman near the living room couch, looking rumpled and cranky. Will and Jamie both looked ready to throw something; their eyes were bleary with exhaustion, and they lounged on the floor in their pajamas, yawning. Starbright, somehow looking worried despite the fact that she was a cat, rubbed her body against the length of Becky's leg. The other four cats—Custard and the three Jack hadn't been introduced to yet—looked mightily offended at all the noise.

And there was Sally in a wrinkled t-shirt that hung to her knees and a pair of thin, black sleep-pants. She held Lori against her chest, which meant the full volume of the toddler's screams blasted right into Sally's ears. Where the single mother looked pale and tired, Lori's face was flushed as red as a sunburn. She kept screaming as fat tears rolled down her scarlet cheeks.

"How did you know I was he—"

"Call it a hunch," she said over the noise, giving the toddler a jiggle. "Come on, sweetie, I know you're miserable. I know. But please, stop screaming."

"What's wrong with her?" He asked, coming further into the room, but keeping enough distance that he wasn't at risk of Sally shoving Lori into his arms and making a break for it. She looked ready to do something drastic.

Shifting the little girl in her arms, Sally opened her mouth to say something when Lori started coughing—a surprisingly deep, barking cough that seemed to tear out of her small throat with enough force to shake her entire body. Sally's face crumpled for a split-second as Lori coughed and gasped for breath before she went back to crying and screaming. Blanking her face, Sally said, "She has croup."

Oh. He actually knew what that was. It was a sort of virus that made little kids cough, sometimes incredibly hard, and made it hard to breathe (yet somehow they managed to cry and scream anyway, which made breathing even harder). It could be dangerous in infants but Lori was old enough, she should've been okay. It was just hard to breathe, which was scaring the daylights out of her. And he vaguely remembered something about croup causing fevers, which also made kids cry sometimes.

Floundering for something to say, he finally settled on, "Did you give her any medicine?"

The look she hit him with was almost scathing. "She won't take the baby Tylenol. I tried just squirting it in her mouth but I don't want to cut her mouth on the eyedropper. That's happened before with that one." She pointed a toe at Will, who was poking wearily at a pile of tumbled blocks on the floor. "She's keeping the kids awake, too."

"She's keeping the neighborhood awake," Jack informed her, although that was a bit of an exaggeration. They didn't have any neighbors close enough to hear Lori's wails. Just him over in the guest house and the dogs.

"Sorry," Sally mumbled, looking away.

In that moment he realized she was near tears. She had to be exhausted. He knew the kids were, especially Lori. How long could she keep up screaming like that? Eventually she'd wear herself out, right? But he didn't think Sally, as tired as she was, could wait long enough for the kid to knock herself cold.

"Uh…hey," he said. This was awkward. This just _felt_ awkward because what did he know about sick kids? But Sally had circles under her eyes, and her eyes looked strange, a little too shiny. He hoped she wasn't trying to hold back impending tears, because that would've just made everything worse—the kids being upset, Lori freaking out, him feeling…more than a little useless. And it was the middle of the night. She needed some sleep. "Is…uh…is there anything I can, uh…do? To help?"

She leaned back against the wall and let her head touch the wood paneling, closing her eyes as if trying to escape the toddler's shrieks. Finally she sighed. "The kids need some sleep but she's way too loud, she's keeping them up. Can they stay in the guest house living room tonight?"

Crap. "Uh…" She really trusted him that much. But what the hell was he supposed to do with a trio of kids in the middle of the night? "I…" What if they didn't want to go to sleep? What was he supposed to do? "Um…"

"Never mind." She pushed away from the wall and started to walk across the room, bouncing Lori ever so gently. "Forget it."

"No," his treacherous mouth said before his brain had a chance to react. A rumble of panic shuddered through his body, but he quashed it ruthlessly. He'd been the Winter Soldier less than a year ago. He could handle three little kids. "I can do that. Sure." So much for leaving at dawn like he'd planned. Whatever, one more day wouldn't hurt. "Anything else?"

She frowned, thinking. He noticed her nose twitched from side to side like a rabbit's sometimes when she was deep in thought. After a moment Sally said, "Actually…ohmigawsh, there's a sweet potato pie and a tub of whipped cream in the fridge in the kitchen. Can you go get it? Cut me a very small slice, maybe an inch wide."

"Okay…"

Doing as she asked, he brought her the bowl with the sliver of pie. He didn't realize his danger until she plucked the pie bowl out of his grasp with her free hand and shoved a sobbing Lori into his arms. He froze, incredulity and no little irritation buzzing under his skin. He shot her a look that should've had her snatching the kid back but instead she took the fork and started whipping the sweet potato filling and whipped cream together until it was a small pile of smoothly whipped, sweet potato cream. She held up one finger. "Hang on, gimme one second," and she rushed back into the kitchen, leaving him with Lori.

Lori's screams had dwindled to helpless, furious sobs by now. Her face was bright red and the breath hitched in her throat every few seconds. She pushed at him with tiny fists but didn't seem to have the energy to smack him or anything. What was he supposed to do?

Remembering what Sally had done, he sort of jiggled the toddler. She made a "gyuh-gyuh-gyuh" sound and her sobs quieted a little. Well. That seemed to work. He tried it again, and Lori went, "Gyuh-gyuh-gyuh." She sniffled. Coughed on him. He closed his eyes and grimaced as kid spit sprayed the side of his neck. Better than blood, he thought. He jiggled her again. To his surprise, she laid her head on his shoulder.

"Uh…Sally?" What was she doing in there?

She came hustling back into the room. He noticed suddenly she wore pale blue socks with cartoon penguins on them. Across the tops of the socks were the words, _You did what? With who? For __**how many**__ cookies?_ They were so utterly…her.

In her hands was the bowl of sweet potato cream. A plastic baby-spoon covered in butterflies stuck out of the bowl, a small blob of cream on it. "Now I have to get her to open her mouth."

"Can't you just swipe it on her lips or something? And why are you giving her this stuff, anyway?"

Sally's lips curved into a smug smile. "I mixed the medicine into the sugary death-mix. Well, lite sugary death-mix. It's diet pie. Usually I use carrots or pudding but I tried that already and she wasn't having any of it. Hang on. Lori." Lori coughed, hiccupped, then whimpered. "Lo-Lo. Hey." The toddler picked her head up off of his shoulder and the assassin realized he had a wet spot the size of a quarter on his jacket. Great. "I know your favorite wooord," Sally said in a sing-song voice. "_Futterwhacken._"

Lori smiled and Sally popped the plastic spoon in her mouth. The toddler's eyes bulged in outrage and her face scrunched up in preparation for another round of screaming…but then her features relaxed. The dark eyes crossed as they tried to focus on the spoon sticking out of her mouth. Sally pulled out the spoon and Lori smacked her lips.

"Oh, ho!" Sally grinned. "You like that, huh? I have found your kryptonite, oh tiny sinister one. Prepare to be defeated. Say 'ahhh.'"

Jack held the tired toddler while her mother fed her spoonful after tiny spoonful of the pie-and-cream mixture. When it was all gone, Lori dropped her head back onto Jack's shoulder while her mother set the bowl on an end table. Lori's small body shuddered as she sucked in a ragged breath. She coughed again.

"Thank you," Sally said as she rubbed Lori's back. "Seriously, Jack, thank you so much. I didn't think I'd ever get her to stop crying. She was so freaked out, nothing I did would work." Sally shoved at the auburn strands falling out of her loose scrunchie. "Thanks."

"Can you take her back now?" He started to lean the toddler away from him. A string of spit connected her face to his shoulder for a moment before breaking. Ugh. "I don't want to…you know, drop her or something."

"Sure."

But the moment Lori realized she was being pulled out of his arms, the screaming started up again. Jamie and Will, who'd fallen asleep during the fifteen-odd minutes of quiet, both jolted awake. Jamie groaned and kicked the floor, beating it a few times with his fists. Will raised his hands to his face and started to cry; Jack figured it had to be out of sheer frustration.

"Lori!" Sally yelped, rolling her eyes. "Really?" She wrapped both arms around the straining toddler, who strained for Jack as if she were about to drown and he was a life preserver. "Stop it. Ohmigawd, why? Okay, your fever's coming down, you're just cranky. I'm putting you in bed now."

Lori sobbed louder. Sally mouthed, _Sorry_, and carried her off down the hall, leaving the assassin with a still-rocking Becky, an obviously annoyed Jamie, and a sniffling Will.

He cleared his throat. "Uh…what are you crying for?"

Wrong question. Will smacked his legs with both hands and cried, "I just wanna _rest!_ I need to _rest_ now! Is _bedtime!_" And then he started crying loudly again. Oh, boy.

Becky stopped rocking, got up, and went over to Will. Then she just absently patted his head while staring off into space until he stopped crying. She patted him one more time, then sat down on the floor, flopped over, curled into a ball, and started walking her fingers across the carpet like a spider. At that point Sally came back into the room. Jack was so relieved to see her that if he'd been anyone else, he might have cried. Lori's sobs could still be heard from down the hall.

"Can you still take them?" Sally asked, scrubbing her hands over her face in a vain attempt to push away the fatigue. "I don't know when she's gonna stop and they're so tired."

Against his better judgment, he nodded. "Sure. Uh…what?" Sally was watching him with narrowed eyes, looking fuzzy and confused. He eyed her. "Yes?"

She shook her head. "Uh…nothing. Jamie, you and your brother and sister, go get your pillows and anything you want to take to Jack's house, okay? You're staying there tonight."

Jamie leapt to his feet. "Cool! C'mon, Becky!" Becky stood up and followed her twin sedately down the hall, only shying away from Lori's door when she got close to the source of the screaming. Will trudged after them, disappearing into his own room.

Sally came over to him, arms folded across her chest. "Thank you for this. I really appreciate it. I'm used to getting broken sleep after seeing four kids through croup, colic, and new teeth, but they're so tired. I can't send them anywhere in town. Thanks." She shifted a little closer, and the rich aroma of pumpkin spice and nutmeg drifted over to him. Sally lifted a slim hand to brush at the hair wisping against her neck. "I know this is probably not what you're used to."

He offered her a small smile. "Definitely not. But it's the middle of the night, they should conk out right away, right? Not like they're going to want to…" A sliver of memory slid into place, a key into a lock. "To build a blanket-fort or anything, right?"

Steve. Him and Steve when they were kids, pulling the cushions of the couch, draping blankets across the back of the kitchen chairs, snagging the flashlights from their dads' offices to light up their forts in the darkness. They'd done that who knew how many times, but it had never gotten old. Even when they were teenagers, they'd done it because the cushions were better than the cold floor and the blankets kept out the draft (though it didn't keep out Bucky's dog, who always wanted in on the adventure).

Shaking himself back to the present, Jack realized Sally had drifted closer to him. Now she was barely an inch away. The hair at the nape of his neck and on his arms prickled at the warmth of her so close, the scent of her coming to him on the cool air. She peeked up at him through her lashes. She looked suddenly shy. He swallowed. He had no idea what to say. What was she…what if she was…

"I really appreciate this," she repeated, stepping so close his sleeve brushed her t-shirt. Another ribbon t-shirt like the one she'd worn when he'd first seen her, with a multi-colored ribbon that looked like it was made out of puzzle pieces. She lowered her gaze. "Thanks."

It took too many seconds for him to remember the words he was supposed to say. Too many more seconds to remember _how_ to use them. "Um…it's no problem. Really."

She met his eyes, honey-gold locking with his own gray-blue, and her lips parted. His stomach twisted sharply as she leaned in, watching him. She wasn't going to…but what if…She was a civilian, he shouldn't let her…

The next time she moved, it was so fast and so unexpected that he reacted nano-seconds too late. Her hand swept forward, brushing over his hip and up to slide under his jacket. He opened his mouth to say something, to give some excuse why they couldn't do whatever she was about to try to do, when he felt her fingers brush the small of his back and he realized she wasn't trying to kiss him.

She was going for his gun.

His hand whipped out instinctively to grab her but she slipped out of his grip before he could close his hand around her wrist. His gun was in her hand. Dancing out of reach, she positioned herself in front of the hallway that led to the kids' bedrooms and angled the Glock. She wasn't aiming at him, but if he moved, she could nudge the barrel over a smidge and shoot him in the chest in a second.

Stupid, stupid. Had he really bought the whole civilian schtick? What was _wrong_ with him? He should have recognized an agent or assassin or whatever she was just by looking at her. The memories of Bucky Barnes breaking through his consciousness were dulling his edge.

"Okay," he said softly. Sally—if that was even her real name—narrowed her eyes. That's why she'd been looking at him funny before. Sometime during the last thirty minutes, she'd figured out he was armed. "So…what now?"

"I just have one question," she replied.

"I've got a few more than that," he muttered. "What's your question?"

She lifted her chin in challenge. "Why did you bring a gun into my house?"

Okay…not the question he'd been expecting. Squashing the sudden discomfort roiling in his stomach, ignoring the fact that now he felt like an idiot for ever being worried, he said, "I thought you and the kids might be in trouble."

Her brows knotted. "What kind of trouble needs a man with a gun?"

He shrugged. "Lori was screaming."

She studied him for several long seconds in silence broken only by the sleepy mumbles of the three older kids and Lori's harsh sobbing and coughing. That kid could really go. Finally Sally set the gun on the floor and kicked it back to him. She was giving him his weapon back? Why would she do that?

Not one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, he snatched up the gun and stuck it back in the waistband of his pants under his jacket. Then he studied her just as intently as she'd studied him.

"How did you do that?" He asked finally.

Sally frowned. "Do what? Figure out you were carrying?"

He shook his head. "How did you take my gun from me? Is that a mutant power you neglected to tell me about—super speed?"

"I don't have super speed," she snapped, glancing over her shoulder down the hall. The kids still weren't back from their rooms yet. "Don't even joke about that. You have _no_ idea…" She covered her mouth with one hand. Hunched her shoulders. When she met his gaze again, her eyes gleamed wetly. "It's not a mutant ability. I'm just…a little faster than most people."

"You shouldn't be faster than me," he said quietly. "Unless it's a super power."

She squeezed her eyes shut. Rubbed the inside of her left elbow as if it hurt. The same place, he realized, where he'd seen track marks on her skin. He stared at her, a new question revolving in his brain.

"Are you on something?"

Her eyes flashed like amber fire. "Excuse me? What do you mean, _on_ something? What, like drugs?" She looked like he'd slapped her when he tilted his chin toward her arm, which she was still rubbing. She snatched her hand away, tucking it behind her back. "I don't do recreational narcotics or whatever. The only chemicals like that that I put in my body are…prescription, you might say."

He raised an eyebrow. "I _might_ say. Which implies that's not the whole truth. So what's the deal?"

Folding her arms again, she replied, "I don't push you for answers you can't give me. Don't do it to me. We all have secrets. This is mine. Okay? Just let it go, Jack. You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"You have track marks on your arms."

She sighed. "I have to take…medicine. For a condition I have. It's intravenous. I could use the breathalyzer but it can wreck your taste buds. I'm a baker, I need decent taste buds, okay?" She dropped her arms and turned away. Folded them again. Her frachetty energy made him itch. She shot another nervous glance over her shoulder to see if the kids were out of their rooms yet. "Hang on. Guys, what's taking so long?"

"Gotta find my blanket," Will yelled.

"Can we watch a movie at Jack's house?" Jamie called.

Sally rolled her eyes and shook her head in exasperation. "Sure. Pick something short." Focusing on the assassin in her living room again, she lifted her chin. "I let you live here even though you lied to me about your name, even though you come off as sketchy, even though you've seen some things most men haven't—I can tell that from your eyes. So don't ask me things I can't answer. I'm not a drug addict. And you know, if it wasn't for the fact that I know you're a decent guy, I wouldn't even be talking to you because you have no business asking if I do drugs. Other things leave track marks, you know."

His eyebrow popped up again. "Like?"

"Dialysis."

"I know for a fact you're not on dialysis."

"That's not my point," she replied. "I trusted you when you told me you weren't a danger to my family. I trusted you enough to let you move in. Don't make me regret that choice. I don't know what's going on with you, but you don't see me prying, do you?"

The corner of his mouth twitched. "You pry sometimes."

She held up a finger. "I ask. There's a difference." Leaning back against the corner of one wall, she let her eyes drift lazily over him before coming to rest once more on his face. "I guess it comes down to the one thing. Can I trust you?"

Could she trust him? She'd already said she did…but that wasn't what she was asking now. There was a weight to the question that made it seem to sit heavy in the room. As if it was more than just a matter of trusting him with some secret about an illness or disease. She watched him warily from bruised eyes while he studied her in turn. He didn't have her ability to tell when someone was lying to him, but she'd never lied to him yet that he knew of. If she didn't want to answer a question, she just didn't answer it. So…

He shifted his weight. She tensed. He eyed her. "How fast can you move? If you don't want to answer, you don't have to," he hastened to add. "I'm just a little curious."

She shrugged. "If that was your fastest? A little bit faster than you for about twenty, thirty seconds. Then I burn out. I can't sustain the speed. It's enough to get me out of reach sometimes, that's it. And even that comes with a price."

Deciding not to pursue that, he asked, "Do you have strength, too?"

Another shrug. "Not especially. I might be as strong as the local quarterback. I can't bench a car or anything. And if I use my strength, I get tired fast. It wears me out."

"You have combat training."

"So do you," she replied with cool equanimity. "What's it to you?"

"Were you experimented on?"

It was a gamble. A huge risk. A month ago, he never would have considered asking her. He never would have let himself consider the idea that Sally might be…like him. A failed version of him from who knew where. Someone who'd been injected with the serum that had turned him into a monster. Into a killing machine. But he realized even as the words slipped like a secret from his mouth that he trusted her just enough to ask.

His disappointment when she shook her head surprised him. He'd been sure…Not mutant powers. Not experimentation. Not drugs. It couldn't be cybernetics because any tech that pumped up regular abilities and made them superhuman still fell into the category of experimental, if not outright dangerous. What then?

"The medicine?" When Sally shook her head, he forced himself not to frown. A mystery, then. One his curiosity—and his survival instinct—wanted him desperately to unravel. But he didn't push her. The ruthless assassin in him, the Winter Soldier, noticed how fragile she seemed with so little sleep and under so much strain. He could have used that against her. Could have chipped away at her brittle mask of strength until it crumbled, leaving only the exhausted and possibly frightened woman who called him her friend. But the part of him that was Bucky Barnes refused to do it. Instead he just asked, "Are you in some kind of trouble, Sally?"

Her smile came like a tired shadow, slipping across her face for a few startling moments of relief and gratitude before it turned rueful. She shook her head. "Not anymore. Not for a long time. But thank you. Can you still take the kids?"

They could both still hear Lori wailing, though quieter now. She seemed to be on her last legs. But if she got some sleep and woke up still cranky and sick, who knew how long the next screeching fit would last? The kids definitely needed to get out of the house, away from all the stress and unhappiness. So he nodded.

"You'll keep the weapons out of reach." It wasn't a question, but he nodded to her anyway. She inclined her head. Then she turned to the hall and clapped her hands three times. "Okay, okay, we don't got all night. You guys are number one on the runway, let's go!"

James and Becky came out of their room. Hearing his older siblings, Will poked his head out and then scrambled to follow them, dragging a small blanket on the ground with the familiar red and gold figure of Iron Man giving a thumbs-up. He dragged a pillow with a matching pillowcase. Half-wrapped around his neck was a stuffed octopus that looked like it had been made out of old socks, also in Iron Man colors, but wearing tattered purple shorts. Becky clutched a pillow and a plush snowman with buggy eyes, while Jamie carried a pillow tucked under one arm and proudly displayed a DVD with a little girl in a bathing suit, a woman who looked to be her sister, and a blue…thing on the cover.

"Oh, _Lilo and Stitch_," Sally said, grinning. "Good choice, buddy. Alright, you guys behave and do what Jack tells you, okay?" Receiving solemn oaths from the three children, she leaned down and kissed the boys each once on the forehead.

Both of them made faces and swiped at their heads.

"Hey! You adorable ingrates, don't you wipe off my kisses," Sally cried, grinning wider. Both boys grinned back. It was completely obvious to Jack that they'd done that so she'd kiss them again. "Be my good boys, okay?" She kissed their foreheads, their cheeks, and their noses, making them giggle. Then she turned to Becky.

"Be Mommy's good girl," she said softly, kissing her palm and holding it out to the seven-year-old. Becky kissed her own palm and touched Sally's hand, smiling absently. Sally gestured to the stairs. "They're all yours. Thanks again," and he knew she didn't just mean the children.

"Not a problem. You going to be okay?" When she nodded, he headed for the stairs. "Okay, then. Good night."

**.**

_The present…_

**.**

He'd been an idiot, the Winter Soldier thought as he pulled out his cell phone. He hadn't even seen how easily she wrapped him around her little finger, or how much he was willing to do and to risk in order to feel welcome and accepted in her little slice of normalcy. He'd let the kids camp out on the living room, commandeering the cushions from the couch and chairs. They'd watched the movie about a scientifically engineered killing machine who'd found a family and a home (the irony had been lost to him at the time). He'd kept half an eye on the movie and the kids while parking himself near the door in case something…_unexpected_ happened. He'd dozed off and on, waking whenever one of the kids rolled over. He'd kept his gun at hand. He'd made sure all of his other weapons were where he and he alone could get them. And he had found something oddly soothing in the sound of three kids snoring softly in the living room, trusting completely that nothing bad would happen to them while he was there.

It was different from the expectant dread that often saturated every room he'd walked into when he'd been the Winter Soldier fighting for HYDRA. He hadn't understood the difference then, but he'd felt in. They didn't see him coming and expect blood and pain and fear. He didn't look at them and see very easily breakable targets. In a whole new way they had been like a mission—one of protection, not death. It was the same driving need to protect that had drilled through him when he'd first come to Whistle-Stop, and when he'd fought Agent Neramani on the beach after she'd pointed a gun at Becky.

Now the assassin focused on that primal instinct to defend the people he'd offered his protection while he punched out a quick text to Sally. He hoped she didn't stay parked for long. Remaining stationary increased their chances of being noticed by any HYDRA agents that might have been trailing them.

He didn't want Sally to have to use her abilities. She was already too fragile. If his guess was correct—and he had every reason to assume it was—she was dancing close to the edge.

_Can you make it to King?_

After a few seconds, the screen lit up again with her response. _No._

He texted back, _Serum kicking in yet?_ It took a colossal effort not to crush his phone in his metal fist when he got her reply a few moments later.

_Still not taking it._

Closing his eyes, the assassin leaned back in his seat. Tried to suppress the worry and irritation twining like ribbons of acid in his stomach. When he opened his eyes again, he looked out the window of the helicopter swooping over the boreal forest toward the US-Canadian border. Velvety emerald stretched out beneath the chopper in a sweeping carpet. He couldn't make out much beyond the landmarks, but he knew if he'd had Becky up here with him, once they were back on the ground she'd have been able to draw every detail of the forest.

Equilibrium firmly back in his grasp, as cold and clinically detached as the Winter Soldier had ever been—at least on the surface—the assassin texted, _This is day three. How much longer?_ She knew what he was asking. How much longer could she survive without injecting the serum into her veins? At least, survive with her sanity intact and her children still safe?

_Few more days. Where should we go?_

Good question. The safe-houses were compromised. Where could he send them? The X-Mansion in Manhattan where Sally had gone to school? HYDRA would be expecting that. He _could_ tell her to meet up with him at the rendezvous point where he intended to intercept Steve, but he didn't want Will, Becky, and Lori there. So what?

_Change of plans,_ he texted. _Head for Stark Tower. Stay off main roads. Be careful._

There was nothing for several long, tense moments, and then…

_Be careful. Love you._

He sucked in a breath so sharp it was like he'd been pierced. His thumb hovered over the button that would allow him to reply. His fingers spasmed briefly. It would only take a second…but no. He didn't have time for sentiment right now. He had a mission. He could deal with sentiment later.


	7. The Parting of the Ways

_**Author's Note:**__ hey, everyone! I'm back with a new chapter. I'm glad you guys are liking it so far! Now in this chap we get some hints to Sally's backstory, yay! But just an fyi, I have to go on hiatus for a couple months because NaNoWriMo just happened and I need to finish my manuscript and update 2 of my other fanfics that haven't been touched in forever. So sorry! But I will be back hopefully by the New Year (or maybe Valentine's Day) with more Bucky/Sally adventures! Let me know what you think of this chapter, okay? And hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving or November 28th (depending on where you live)._

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**Chapter Seven  
Parting of the Ways**

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_10 months earlier…_

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Jack had just finished repairing a busted heating coil in one of the industrial-sized ovens one Friday around four when he walked out to see the place pretty much deserted, Peter wiping down tables and Sally sitting with Becky at an empty booth. It didn't surprise the assassin to see the bakery so quiet; the rush would come in a little less than an hour. Sally was taking the time to tutor Becky while she had the chance.

"What face is this?" Sally held up a flashcard. Becky glanced at it before looking out the window. Sunshine dappled across her cheeks. Sally reached out and tapped Becky's cheek, startling her. "Becky, pay attention. What face is this?" A tiny wrinkle appeared between Becky's dark brows and she cocked her head to one side. "What face is this?" Sally asked again.

"Happy," Becky murmured.

"Good." Sally smiled. "Can you make a happy face for me?" After a moment, Sally said, "That's not your happy face. That's your 'Mommy, why are you making me do this?' face. Make a happy face for me."

Becky peeled her lips back and bared her teeth in a rictus smile. She pointed at her face.

"Okay, what's this?" Sally flipped up another card and Becky furrowed her brows, screwed up her face, and glared. "Good job!" Sally said, and Becky smiled—a normal smile. "What's this called?"

"Angry face."

"Angry face," Sally echoed. "Yup. This is a mad face. So if someone makes you grumpy, what face do you make?" Becky screwed up her face again. "Awesome. And if you're happy, what do you do?" Becky made that weird smile. "Close enough. And show me your sad face." Becky folded her arms across her chest and looked sulky. "That's not a sad face. That's a pouty face. Show me a sad face." The little girl stuck out her lip and squeezed her eyes shut. "Good. So when you're happy, what face do you make? Show me a happy face." Becky gave her the rictus smile. "Good job! Okay, you can go have your cookie if you say…?"

"Please."

"Please what?"

"Please-can-I-have-a-cookie?" Becky rattled off at the speed of light. Sally grinned and shooed her daughter toward the counter where a plate of cookies sat in a patch of sunlight. Becky scrambled of the bench-seat, rocketing toward the counter…but she stopped when she caught sight of Jack. The assassin raised his eyebrows at the little girl. Becky took a few hesitant steps toward him, then reached out and poked him in the stomach. "Jack."

Sally dropped the stack of flashcards. Jack looked from Becky to her mother and saw that Sally was staring at them with a look of absolute shock on her face. She cleared her throat. Swallowed. "Who's that, Becky?"

Becky turned back to her mother, but she was still pointing at him. "Jack." Then she reached out and grabbed his left hand. He tensed but didn't yank away as the child pumped his metal hand—encased in its black leather glove—up and down three times. "I'm Becky, nice to meet you, sorry I forgot," she mumbled quickly while staring at his shoes. "Those are my cookies." And she darted around him toward the cookies again.

Baffled, he strode over to Sally, who'd dropped down to pick up the flashcards she'd spilled on the floor. "Oven's fixed," he said, crouching down to help. He shot a glance at the seven-year-old carefully pressing the tines of a fork into the soft frosting on one of the cookies. "What was that all about?"

"Her therapist taught her to say that when she meets new people," Sally said, squaring the thin deck. "If she's feeling good, feeling comfortable, she'll talk sometimes. Like that. She's not usually that spontaneous, though. You have to remind her. And she said your name."

He arched an eyebrow. "Is that weird?"

"A little bit," she said. "Yeah. I guess…I guess it's just because she really likes you. You must make her feel safe."

That struck him as more than a little strange, considering who he was and what he used to be. The instincts for violence were still there. The killer in him still prowled beneath the skin. Becky had _seen_ him kill Agent Neramani, and he hadn't been gentle about it. Not for the first time, he wondered how much the kid really understood about what had happened that night a few weeks ago. After he'd given her his phone to light the way home, she'd been eerily calm. Was that all it was? The fact that he'd given her his phone? He'd pushed away the darkness that scared her so much, but…it still didn't feel like that should've pushed aside what else she'd seen. Did she just legitimately not understand?

"Huh," was all he said.

Sally shook her head. "No, you don't understand. She tried to connect with you. It's hard for her, bridging the social gap. She has a hard time dealing with the fact that people are even _around_. But she went out of her way to talk to you. Do you get it? That's _huge_."

"Uh…you're welcome?"

She pushed her glasses back up her nose and smiled. "Thank you. So when are you gonna actually have dinner with us, loner person?"

He rarely remembered the gritty details of life as HYDRA's leashed but still rabid dog before the mind-wipe where his handlers had tried once more—and failed, though just barely—to eradicate James Buchanan Barnes and the ghost of Captain Steven Rogers, childhood friend and brother-in-arms. But sometimes bits and pieces of old missions flitted through his mind like demonic butterflies, lured by some stray fragment of stimuli that often left him reeling. This time was no different.

Once, a set of timed C4-bombs had blown apart the support beams for the top floor of a skyscraper he'd been prowling through in Latveria. The current despot's vain attempt to stop him from assassinating one of the guy's top agents. Shrapnel whizzing through the air, concrete threatening to melt under the ferocious heat, the floor buckling and crumbling, he'd barely been able to keep his footing as he'd dashed across the room toward his target. He'd tripped for a second on a chunk of debris and nearly gone down. For a fraction of a second, he'd felt his stomach lurch into his throat at the suddenly loose grip gravity had on his body while flames licked at the sides of his legs and his left hand shot out, frantic to grab some kind of purchase.

The dinner question made him feel a lot like that.

The assassin eyed the baker warily as they both stood up. He hadn't realized the dinner invitation was a standing one. He hadn't realized she'd expected him to follow through at some point. He'd thought he'd dodged a bullet when she hadn't questioned him going back to the guest house the night Becky had been kidnapped. It had never occurred to him she might be waiting to pounce on him again. Not after she'd taken his gun two nights ago. Not after they'd established that there were rules, barriers between them that kept either from getting too close. At least, he'd thought they'd established all of that.

"Uh…" He faltered. Honey-gold eyes turned up to study him with an almost childlike expression. Sally simply waited, taking her seat again, a disarming smile on her face. "I don't know. I might be leaving soon."

Her smile slipped away like raindrops sliding down glass out of sight. She tapped her glasses down so she could peer up at him over the frames. "You haven't talked recently about leaving," she murmured. "I…I thought you were staying longer than that."

He shrugged, glancing away to see Starbright and Custard, the kitten who seemed to be perpetually caffeinated, wrestling on the floor under a table. In the eight weeks he'd been in Whistle-Stop, he'd never seen any of Sally's animals hop on tabletops or counters. The closest they came was settling in windowsills to take advantage of the warm sun. Her three dogs—Pupcake, the English bull terrier, and the retrievers Dug and Somewhere frolicking with the kids across the grassy lot between the bakery and the guest house—didn't come in the bakery at all. The kids let them in at night through the back door so they could sleep upstairs.

Pretending a sudden and intense interest in Starbright and Custard's antics, he said, "It's been almost two months. I didn't plan on staying much longer than a month, remember."

Sally didn't speak for a long moment. He felt her eyes on him, heavy as a flak-jacket, hot as the Mojave sun. It was strange, he told himself—not for the first time. In the last few weeks, even before rescuing Becky, he'd started being able to tell when Sally was looking at him. Not just that someone was looking at him—he'd had that gift since…since…he couldn't remember how long—but that _Sally_ specifically was the one.

It made the short hairs at the nape of his neck prickle, had the hair on his arms bristling slightly. But it was different, too. It didn't feel like a threat when she would look at him, even though he had so many questions buzzing still in the back of his mind, even though she was a mystery. He didn't know what it was he felt when she looked at him, but it wasn't a threat. It _was_ distracting, though, and he couldn't afford that.

"What are you running from, Jack?" She asked so softly he barely heard her. Something icy slid like poison down his spine. Every muscle stiffened. His gaze slashed to her, but she wasn't looking at him anymore. She stared out the window, a distant and dreamy look on her face. Sadness, lostness, shadowed her eyes. "I know what runners look like. In my line of work, you have to." He frowned, but said nothing. "Won't you tell me? Because you're safe here."

Without quite knowing why he did it, he slipped into the booth with her, taking the opposite bench Becky had so recently vacated. He let his gaze drift over her face, searching. Searching. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, though. Some indication that she knew the truth about him, his history, HYDRA? Something to incriminate her?

She'd left him unmolested for eight weeks. She'd been nothing but friendly. Neighborly. She had never pressed him for answers he couldn't give unless her children's safety was a concern. Why, though? What was it that made her accept him? Her secret, that had something to do with her speed and her strength and the track marks on her arms. And why did she think—how did she know—that he was escaping something? Her line of work? She was a baker. She made cupcakes for a living. Donuts. Chocolate éclairs. There was nothing about taking snapshot readings of people in her job description.

"You're not safe here," he replied because something about her gaze dragged words out of him. He'd spoken maybe a thousand words as far back as he could remember. Mostly giving commands to the few contacts he had that required instruction. Describing him as taciturn would've been an understatement.

But there was this…bubble around Sally. Deceptively warm, open, friendly. It smoothed down the sharper edges of his wariness, coaxed him to drop his guard. Pulled a thousand frozen words into his mouth where they could thaw and spill out. Maybe because Bucky Barnes was starting to filter through the foggy layers of HYDRA mind-wipes. Maybe because this was the longest he'd been out of cryo. He had no clue, but he found himself becoming used to her, trusting her enough to let himself shine through every now and again. Or what fragments were left, anyway.

"Your kids get harassed by local punks. You can't trust the people here, I've seen how you watch them when they come into the bakery. People like that punk's parents. The sheriff."

"The sheriff's a bigot and it was handled quickly without anyone interfering. You weren't even here, you were hibernating in your man-cave. How do you know what happened?"

"I overheard Jamie and Will talking about it." Overheard two confused little boys talking yesterday afternoon about why their mom was crying while she scrubbed some of the cake pans after the sheriff had left because he'd mentioned their father. They didn't know _what_ he'd said—and neither did Jack, who'd refrained from asking—but whatever it was had left Sally nearly speechless with fury. "It's not safe here for you, so why do you think it's safe for me?"

She leaned back in her seat and sighed. Canted her head in acknowledgment. "That's a fair question. The reason it's safe for you is the same reason I stay."

"Because big cities are dangerous for mutants?" Because that had nothing to do with him.

Sally looked blank for a moment, then blinked and smacked herself in the forehead. "D'oh! I forgot that reason. No, not that reason. The other reason I stay. The reason I stay in _this_ particular town. Whistle-Stop is safe for people who are running. That's all I can tell you, but it's the truth. Things out there?" She gestured to the window, and again he saw the odd marks on the inside of her arm. "The world's insane. This place isn't the greatest, either…but people who need to run, this is a good place for them."

On a hunch, he asked, "Is that why you came here?"

She hesitated for the briefest instant before nodding. "Yeah. When I was younger, I came through here. Met someone who made my life very, very complicated. In a good way."

"Who?"

Sorrow flooded her expression, a pain sharp enough to make air bleed before it dulled away. "My husband. That's how we met. Both of us were running and we came here."

"What were _you_ running from?"

Her smile hardened, took on sharp edges like blades of glass dipped in rancid poison. Pain flashed through her eyes, so wicked and dark, and something deep inside him went very, very still. Still as a wild animal caught in a hunter's sights. Electricity danced across his skin like a warning. He stared into her eyes. Old anguish and fury buried beneath the ashes of a past set to the torch looked back at him. The still thing inside him thrummed like a plucked string.

"My family," Sally said, and he felt Pierce's backhand like a brand against his face, hot and vicious, a sudden surge of hot memory slicing through the icy fog of the mind-wipes. "My life," she added, and he could suddenly smell blood, hear screams, taste cold steel and sweat on his tongue. His hands convulsed into fists. Sally's hands gently settled over his fists; his eyes snapped to hers, focused on her face. "I ran, and I ended up here, and it's okay. It was even good for a long time. Good enough that when I left Whistle-Stop, I didn't stay gone very long. It's safe here. Whoever you're running from, I can make sure they don't find you. I have connections. I have ways. You shouldn't have to keep running."

He had no words. They evaporated in the face of her intensity, her anger. She _was_ angry, he realized. Angry because she knew, somehow, that he had something dogging his footsteps and she couldn't help him. She wanted to help him. The sheer strangeness of the idea helped knock him out of the slowly-tightening grip of his memory. Sally wanted to help him.

But if he let her, she could end up dead. If HYDRA or SHIELD found out about her, found out she knew who and what he was, then she and her family would be in danger. He couldn't repay her kindness that way.

"I'm stronger than you think," she added as if in response to his thoughts. "There's a lot about me you don't know, Jack. I wasn't always, you know, the Cake Boss of Whistle-Stop. I've been around the block a few times. I've been out there in the madness. I've dealt with it."

She started to get up, leaving him with the questions boiling in his skull. He watched her stand, held immobile by the strange darkness he'd glimpsed inside her, the obsidian fury and pain like a jagged mirror. Words clogged in his throat. He couldn't move. The world's deadliest assassin, HYDRA's greatest asset, and he couldn't move because he'd seen something akin to what festered inside himself in her eyes.

When she was almost out of reach his hand snaked out and grabbed her wrist. She tensed. Relaxed. He could tell she had to force her body to release the tension suddenly thrumming through it. She offered him a politely inquiring look.

It was almost like spitting out something vile when he managed to ask softly, "Who do you work for?"

She had to work for somebody. Maybe not now, but once upon a time. Contacts, she'd said. She had contacts. Ways of keeping him from being found. Never mind that those contacts and methods would send up a hundred red flags to the very people hunting him. And how did she even have them? A former agent? A sleeper agent?

"I work for myself," she replied. "Always have." The veneer of courtesy slipped from her gaze and she added in a voice that was soft as a pillow but hard as vibranium, "Always."

The bell over the door jingled and Sally's head snapped around. Tension whipped through her body. Surprised by the sudden mood swing, Jack sliced his eyes toward the door as a well-built man with a short goatee wearing a thin shirt and light leather jacket stepped into the bakery. Tucked under his arm was a cardboard box sealed with clear tape and marked _FRAGILE_. One hand, sporting a black fingerless glove, lifted in a jaunty wave and he grinned when he saw Sally.

"Evening, ladies!"

Sally's expression transformed. Her eyes melted toward warm sunlit amber and her smile brightened and softened all at once. Jack stared at her, stunned by the sudden joy suffusing her face. She slipped out of his grip, rushing to the new guy and throwing her arms around him.

"King!" When she pulled back, Jack saw she was actually grinning. "I wondered what was taking you so long! Where have you been?"

"Sorry, had a thing in Paris. Ran long." He winked at Sally. Jack slowly rose to his feet. "You don't want to know," the guy added. "So I've got your delivery. You've been okay?"

She nodded. "I've got some emergency stuff in case _someone_," she said pointedly, "doesn't stick to their schedule."

"Studs are never late. They're never early, either. They arrive exactly when they want to."

"Yeah," Sally replied with a teasing smile. "_Studs_ do. So what's _your_ excuse?" The guy made a face like he'd been stabbed and Sally added with a grin, "Oooh. Zing. You staying in town?" She took the box from him, handling it with utmost care.

What was in that thing, Jack wondered? Faberge eggs? While the new guy—she'd called him King—answered Sally's question, the assassin sized up the intruder. He moved like a predator, like a man who knew his way around a knife, a pistol, a shotgun; no wonder he'd set Jack's radar pinging. How did Sally know him? He couldn't be her husband. He'd never asked whether she was divorced or separated or what exactly her married status was—he didn't care and it wasn't really his business anyway—but he knew that her husband had been black because Will and Lori were obviously biracial. So this guy…a brother, maybe?

He should ask, he realized. He should just ask her who the guy was. The dangerous guy. The guy who could've given the Black Widow a run for her money in a fight. The guy who set the assassin's teeth on edge, though he couldn't pinpoint exactly why. Was he SHIELD? HYDRA? The final AIM agent he'd been expecting? Sally seemed to know him, trust him…but she'd trusted Neramani and Neramani had held a gun to Becky's head. If the guy was something dangerous to them, something serious, asking Sally who he was might tip him off.

Jack didn't take his eyes off this new potential threat while he chatted amiably with Sally. Instead he casually sidled up to the counter and studied the baked goods on display, as if he'd suddenly developed an intense need for sugar. Becky, sitting at the counter on her bar-stool, had managed to break the cookie almost perfectly in half after slowly whittling it down the middle with her fork. She didn't look up when Jack approached, but he saw her smile with her head down.

_Happy face_, Jack remembered from the flashcard session earlier. What was that even about? Maybe something to do with the fact that Becky always looked relatively expressionless unless something broke through her shell—like fear. Some form of autism therapy? She wasn't scared of this new guy, though. She wasn't rocking or making those small, frightened noises or crying. She seemed perfectly calm.

The assassin scanned the guy from the corner of his eye, checking him surreptitiously for weapons. Two handguns, both inside the jacket. Easy cross-draw if something or someone attacked them. An experienced eye couldn't miss the knives in forearm sheaths under the sleeves. Did Sally know how much hardware the guy was packing?

"Why's Pretty Boy here checking me out?" King asked cheerfully. His tone was so casual, his expression so unperturbed, it took Jack a second too long to realize King was talking about him. "You gonna introduce us, Sal?"

Sal. He called her Sal?

Sally sighed. "Jack Winter, meet one of my oldest friends, Mr. Hannibal King. King, don't be a d—" Sally cut herself off with a glance at Becky, then made a face and said, "A stupid-head."

"Abomination," Becky interjected.

Both Jack and King frowned at her but Sally choked on a laugh. Fighting back a grin, she said, "Your knuckles say 'Cobra.'"

"We're getting off the subject," Becky mumbled before setting to work bisecting the two halves of her sugar cookie. Sally smiled, a look of pride in her eyes. Jack realized they were quoting from that movie about the freaky blue alien experiment that liked destroying things. With a sigh, Sally focused on the two men once more.

King said, "Who's this guy?" He nodded to the other man.

"I'm renting the guest house," Jack replied, fighting to keep the nerves and the tension out of his voice. "Sally's my landlady."

"Uh-huh." King nodded as if considering this. "Okay. You know, if you think I'm cute, you can just tell me. I'm totally okay with being complimented by pretty much anyone. I know it's hard not staring at absolute perfection—"

"King," Sally interrupted. She propped her elbows on the counter and plunked her chin in her cupped hands. Her smile turned lazy and indulgent, like a cat baiting a mouse it didn't really have plans to kill or maim. "Be quiet. He's looking at you because he knows you're armed." Jack's eyebrow popped up. So did King's. "If anyone's pulling any rulers out to measure things in _my_ bakery, it's going to be so you can measure my foot-long chocolate éclairs, nothing else. Throttle back the testosterone." She focused on Jack and he realized she absolutely understood why this guy made him edgy—she knew King was a predator. "He's safe. We used to work together. He's got my back."

The two men eyed each other, then King shrugged. "Whatever. If your mojo or radar or whatever says he's fine, I'm good. I just wanted to stop by on my way to New York. Got a job up there. Any messages you want me to pass along?"

She grinned. "Tell Hedges he can keep dreaming, it's not happening. Tell Somerfield I appreciate this." She tapped the box. "Give Abby my love, and tell Zoe that Becky says hi."

King saluted her. "Will do. See ya in two months."

"Bye, King."

Without looking up, Becky said, "Bye." Then she stuck a forkful of cookie in her mouth. King waved and trotted out the door. Sally hoisted the box and headed for the stairs leading up to the living quarters on the second floor.

He couldn't take it anymore. "Sally?" She paused, glancing at him over her shoulder. "What's in the box?"

She bit her lip, eyes flicking between his face and the package she held. She looked around. Peter was wiping the counter but no one else was in the bakery and Sally didn't seem to mind him overhearing whatever she was going to say. With a sigh, she said, "You know how I get hunches?" Jack nodded. She jostled the box ever so slightly. "This is why hunches are the only things I get." And she trotted up the steps, leaving him stewing in even more uncertainty, trying to figure out what that meant.

**.**

A few nights later, at the end of the ninth week, Jack decided it was time to leave. It didn't matter what the deal was with Sally. He wouldn't die if he didn't find out. No AIM agents or any new people had arrived in the town in the weeks since he'd killed Neramani and her cohorts. The authorities weren't sniffing around for him. The media frenzy in DC was starting to wind down. It was safe to leave now. Safe to move on.

He left Sally a note tucked inside the latest wicker basket full of baked goods. Of course he'd packed the muffins she made that were the size of small planets but he intended to give the basket back. With the note was the rest of the week's rent even though he didn't plan on staying, just so he could make sure she wouldn't end up in a pinch because he'd left. Sally had washed his extra clothes that morning, even stitched up the slice in his shirt when she'd belatedly noticed the damage he'd incurred fighting Neramani; she'd dropped his clothes off earlier that evening. Everything was packed in his duffel.

Pulling the brim of his cap down to shadow his face, he stepped out the door and locked it behind him. He dropped the keys in the basket, tucking them beneath the cloth, and set the basket on the porch by the door. Sally would find it tomorrow morning with his note and know that he'd left. Ignoring the odd, unsettled feeling in his gut, he glided down the porch steps and headed for the beach.

Neramani had chosen the beach to hold Becky hostage for a reason—it was well out of sight of most of the townspeople and their homes and businesses. It was a slow but safe, out-of-the-way path out of town. Wind and rain had scoured the sand clean of blood from the agents he'd taken down the night AIM had taken Becky. There might have been a few smears of blood dried brown on some of the boulders and rock outcroppings, but it could easily have been mistaken for mud at this point. His boots scuffed along the turf, sending loose bits of sand scudding across the ground as he made his way down through the hills toward the shore.

The moon drifted fat and lazy through the sky, the same color as the buttercream countertops at Sally's bakery. Its light easily illuminated the ground under the assassin's boots. Crabs scuttled back to their holes when he approached. A few night-birds swooped low to scoop up insects or fish caught in the tide pools. Hefting his duffel bag, he set off across the sand, his senses on high alert. Just on the off chance HYDRA had already found him and, to keep a low profile, had been waiting for him to leave on his own.

It was the voices that tipped him off, so quiet the low murmur of them nearly blended with the soft roar of the sea. The hum of conspiratory words tried to slip past his ears, but he was the Winter Soldier. He was HYDRA's biggest asset. He heard them.

Pressing against the bluffs, he kept to the shadows as he crept along. The voices grew microscopically in volume. He couldn't make out words, just sense the urgency in them. Four voices—two men, a baritone and a tenor, and one woman with a husky mezzo-soprano voice. And what sounded like a child. Couldn't tell if the child was male or female, but he was almost positive it was a child. The assassin smelled the softest hint of perfume…and some kind of bread.

The wind blowing off the sea suddenly shifted direction. Salt-sweetness still hovered on the air from the ocean, but now the scents of bread and perfume faded, taken away on the breeze.

Silence now, where once there had been voices.

Tension ratcheted through his body and he reached for the knife sheath at his hip with his right hand, drawing the blade with smooth silence. Had they heard him somehow? Whoever it was? There was no reason to automatically assume they were HYDRA or SHIELD…but in his line of work, it paid to assume the worst and work from there. He inched closer.

"Go!" A man's voice, sharp with command but soft as gossamer poison, shattered the calm of the ocean night. Shadows exploded from the bluffs a dozen yards away, two silhouettes racing off across the beach.

Two more hurtled toward him. The Winter Soldier whipped up the knife as the smaller of the two attacking shadows ducked low, lashed out, and hit him across the knees. Panic surged in his blood, hot as acid. The blow actually rattled his bones. A super soldier? HYDRA agents? The knife slashed silvery bright in the night. The shadow dodged. Twirled away. Something familiar about that maneuver. Black Widow? No, he would've recognized the voice of the target that had shot him practically in the face and wrecked his goggles. Someone else. Neramani, back from the dead? Impossible, she'd had no pulse.

A smallish fist glanced off his jaw. He shot a fist up, metal knuckles colliding with his assailant's wrist, batting aside the next blow. The startled cry of pain slid like a needle through his brain. Familiar. He knew—

"Sal, move!" The man. That voice. He knew it. King. Hannibal King. Which meant…

"Sally, it's me," Jack cried and the shadows froze. The three stared at each other and Jack realized King had a gun leveled at his heart. "It's me," he repeated as Sally slid back the hoodie obscuring her face with darkness. Her eyes gleamed strangely bright in the glow of the moon. A tiny trickle of blood seeped from the corner of her mouth.

He'd done that, he realized. Shame flooded him, even though it was ridiculous. He'd had no idea she was the one attacking him, he'd been defending himself, he'd thought she was a HYDRA agent…But when he looked down at his hand, he saw the wet smear of blood on his knuckles and the shame roiled in his gut again. It almost blotted out the question of where she'd learned to fight and move like that. Fight well enough to last almost thirty seconds against the Winter Soldier.

"Put the gun away, King," Sally murmured, voice oddly thick. She looked away, out toward the sea, and pulled her hoodie back up, obscuring her features once more. "You can head out. I've got this."

"Sal, I took this job as a favor to the professor and I'm gonna do it right. Now this guy could be from SENTINEL—" Sally glanced at the stocky silhouette of her companion, and King fell silent, hands going up in surrender. He nodded, turned away. Left without another word. Sally turned back to Jack and sighed.

"What are you doing out here?"

He didn't answer. What could he say? That he was leaving? He didn't have to say it. His silence spoke for him. Sally rocked back on her heels and slid her hands into the hoodie's pockets. Nodded with obvious resignation.

"You're leaving." She sighed again. "Did I hurt you?"

The laugh escaped without permission. "Did you _hurt_…" Her eyes flashed at him, sulfurous yellow in the strange light, and he stopped laughing. "No," he said softly. "You didn't hurt me. Anyway…I'm taking off."

She nodded. "Okay. Um…you got everything?" He nodded. "Good, good. So where you headed?"

"It's…probably better if I don't tell you that."

After a moment, she nodded in resignation. Kicked a pebble across the sand. "Am I ever going to see you again?"

It left his mouth dry when he replied, "I doubt it." The words felt like chewing glass. He'd spent two months in this sleepy little town where his biggest problems—aside from that single incident with AIM's sleeper agents—was a sheriff who needed a fist in the gut and a little punk who'd taken one look at him and run the other way. Just two months. Why did it feel like he was slowly drilling a hole in his own chest? "I left the rest of this week's rent for you—"

"You don't have to—"

"I want to," he cut her off before she could complete the protest. "Consider it a thank you. I needed a place and…you gave it to me. Most people wouldn't have been so understanding, or so compassionate." She ducked her head. Stared resolutely out at the sea. "Look…I'm not the kind of guy who sticks around places. Even great places like this. But if I _was_ going to stay somewhere, it would be here. So thanks."

She shrugged oh so casually, and when he caught a glimpse of her smile, there was something odd about it. But then she lowered her head again and murmured, "You're welcome. If you're ever in the neighborhood, you could…you know. Come around. Have some panzerotti."

He realized he would've liked that. That would have been wonderful. More than wonderful. But he couldn't do it, and he didn't want to leave her with some unrealistic hope that he might come back. It felt like lying. He didn't want to lie to her.

"I'm not going to be in the neighborhood again."

The words quavered a little when she said, "Well…you might."

"No," he said gently. "I won't." Realizing there was really no point in sticking around—he was just making it harder on her, he understood why, she needed someone around to help out. But she had Peter and she'd find someone else to rent the guest house to—he shouldered his duffel and strode past her. "Take care of yourself, Sally."

"You too, Jack."

**.**

_The present…_

**.**

There weren't many things more awkward than two very muscular, very macho, grown men stuck in a cramped elevator while a girl sang about her archenemy stealing her boyfriend and getting back at her by writing a song about how the boyfriend-stealer was only known for the things that she did on the mattress. Colonel James Rhodes and Sam Wilson stepped out the elevator the moment the doors slid open and escaped the revenge ballad someone had programmed into the elevator's playlist.

Tony was already geared up, making a few last-minute adjustments to the Mach 8 Iron Man suit so that he could stash it in an inconspicuous briefcase. Steve and Natasha had changed into civilian clothes. And Pepper Potts sat with a little boy, maybe five years old, wearing an Iron Man shirt and eating a Rice Krispy treat.

"That him?" Rhodey asked Tony, gesturing to the little boy on the couch next to Pepper. Tony nodded. "So what's the story?"

"Long and short," Steve said as he and Agent Romanoff approached the group. "A woman with some tie to Sergeant James Barnes—an old friend of mine, Bucky—asked for our help. According to Will over there, HYDRA kidnapped his brother Jamie. Bucky's trying to get him back, but he needs help. We're supposed to meet him where the third Insight-Helicarrier crashed over the Potomac—"

"Captain America? Sir?" Will called from the couch. The adults glanced over to see him staring at the screen of the cell phone that had originally held the message commanding Steve and Tony to keep the kid safe. Now the little boy held up the phone. "Gotta text."

Pepper plucked the phone out of the kid's hand and stared at the screen. "Change of plans," she mumbled, lifting her eyes to meet Tony's. "The Winter Soldier is coming here."

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	8. In the Dark of the Night

_**Author's Note:**__ hi, everyone! Sorry I'm a bit late updating. I thought I warned you guys I was going on hiatus for a bit, but maybe I didn't...My bad. Sorry. :( But here we are with the next chapter! And fyi, since I have 3 main fics running right now, I only update once a month. Sometimes I'll do it sooner if I have incentive but that's not a given because I don't update until my beta has proofed my upcoming chapter so it depends on her, too. But she finally finished chapter 8 last night so here we go! Hope you enjoy and let me know what you think, okay? Huggles!  
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**Chapter Eight**

**In the Dark of the Night**

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_8 months ago…_

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The world was nothing but pain, the taste of blood on the back of his tongue, the smears of shadow and light filling his vision, the pulse of his heart throbbing deep through his wounds. Jack staggered out of the shadows toward the glowing windows of the bakery, wondering how much longer he could keep going before he bled to death. A half-dozen gunshot wounds didn't heal fast enough even with the super soldier serum trying to seal the injuries.

He'd driven until his vision had gotten to blurry to see the road. He'd known then that he had to get somewhere safe, somewhere someone could help him. His first thought had been Steve, but Steve was in New York and he'd been coming from North Carolina. His next thought was Sally, who'd been less than two hours away.

He hadn't realized how much blood could fill two hours. How many corpses had he left in his wake? How much death had followed him? He'd been careless in Charleston, and he'd nearly died. If he didn't get up those steps, he'd still probably die. But the closer he'd come to Whistle-Stop, the more care he'd taken to elude anyone who might have been hunting him. He couldn't lead the enemy back to Sally. He couldn't betray her that way. Her…the kids…Who knew what HYDRA would do to them? Whatever Sally's limited mutant abilities, she couldn't protect her family from HYDRA.

Two months. He'd managed to stay off the radar for two months while he'd stayed away from Whistle-Stop. But he'd slipped up when he'd tried to call Steve from a burn phone in Charleston. It had been a mistake, giving in to the gentle flickers of memories in his skull, the whispering breath that murmured of maybe and possibly and friendship and brother in the middle of the night when the darkness pressed in on him with the promise of nightmares. The ghosts of two boys had hovered at the edges of his thoughts, playing catch in a park, wrestling with a friendly dog, scraping knuckles and blacking eyes—their own, and the bullies'—in trash-strewn alleys, struggling with geometry in front of a fire and an old-fashioned radio.

It had been a choice between calling Steve and calling Sally…but he'd chosen Steve, even with all the baggage that came with that choice. Sally was the past. Steve was past, present, and future. Steve was memory and truth. Steve was his friend and his captain. So he'd chosen.

He'd chosen wrong.

Maybe HYDRA had Steve's phone tapped. Maybe SHIELD had been the one to send their dogs after him. It didn't matter. Within an hour of making that call—getting voicemail and floundering through two minutes of silence while the machine waited in vain for some sort of message—the hunters had found him. He'd taken six shots to the torso, one to the chest. He'd removed the bullets but he needed time to lay low, stop moving, just rest somewhere so his muscles could take the time to knit back together, so the blood could stop dripping with every step.

Sally. Sally would help him. She didn't ask questions, and she'd said Whistle-Stop was safe. Something about it made it safe. He'd never figured out what, but she'd been so sure…And, he realized with a jolt that sent everything throbbing afresh, he trusted her instincts.

He nearly tripped at the top of the stairs. His fist thumped weakly against the door. She had to be there. She had to hear him. If she didn't, she'd find his corpse out here on the stoop in the morning. He didn't think he could get up again unless it was to crawl into some hole and hide for a while. He sank to his knees and let himself rest against the doorframe. He just needed to rest…

The door opened. Light lanced across his vision, and his muscles spasmed as his body tried instinctively to flinch and decades of HYDRA training stopped him just in time.

There was a familiar gasp. Gentle hands gripping his shoulders before wrenching back, smeared with his blood. A slow exhalation of understanding and sharp fear. A shadow knelt beside him, all warmth and careful grip and concern. He looked up into honey-gold eyes behind coke-bottle glasses and offered a weak smile.

"I was…in the neighborhood."

"Holy smokes, Jack," Sally whispered. Her eyes darted all over his body. "What happened? We have to get you to a hospital—"

"No hospital," he groaned as she slid herself under his arm and helped him get back to his feet. He felt the bizarre, steely strength in her muscles as she took his weight. "I'll be okay." He bit back another groan as she turned them to head through the door, careful to keep him from bumping the doorframe. They started to inch across the entryway. "I just need…to lay down for a bit. Lay low. It'll heal."

The click of a gun cocking behind them sent ice water crashing through his veins, chilling him to the marrow. Sweat beaded his forehead. The enemy. They'd found him. He'd been so careful, but they'd found him. How? He'd tossed the burn phone. He'd taken back roads. He'd been so careful and yet…yet here they were. The enemy had found Sally. Her home.

They'd never let Sally or the kids live.

Low, smug laughter sent hatred slicing through him. The HYDRA grunt was _laughing_ at him. That son of a—

But then the grunt said, "'Down by the Sally Gardens my true love and I did meet.'"

Sally stiffened further. The breath caught in her throat. She shifted to glance over her shoulder and it had to have been a trick of the light—or maybe the blood loss—because her eyes were the same sulfurous yellow they'd been when he'd said goodbye on the beach two months ago. Her lips looked strange, too. Her whole face looked just so subtly different. Off. Feral, almost. She glared over her shoulder and he remembered suddenly that at one point she'd actually killed someone before.

"I thought I killed you already," the grunt said. Sally's smile turned sharp, predatory, even without teeth. "Apparently you're a lot harder to kill than my boss originally thought."

"You've already tried twice," Sally replied, and it was then that Jack sluggishly realized that the assassin wasn't there for him. The killer wanted Sally. She added coldly, "I'm a little busy right now. I'm surprised you even had the guts to try attacking me here. I wouldn't suggest trying again. Shoo."

"Did you just shoo someone holding a gun on us?" Jack mumbled while his mind raced, trying to find a way out. He could kill the guy but if he did, he might tear something. Speed up the bleeding. Possibly—probably—kill himself. But Sally didn't seem worried. Why wasn't she worried about the maniac with a gun? She wasn't expecting Jack to save them in the condition he'd showed up in, did she? Or was she having some kind of a hunch? Was the sheriff nearby? That friend of hers, King?

Sally carefully moved out from beneath his arm and pressed him against the doorframe for support. "Don't worry," she said. "I'll make this quick, and then I'll take care of you, okay? You'll be alright. Just hang on, Jack." And in one fluid motion, she drew a black-painted pistol from the back of her jeans and aimed it with all the grace of a dancer at the person holding a gun on them. A silencer sat sleek and menacing against the barrel.

The enemy scoffed. "You've got their poison in your blood, traitor. You're no match for one of us hand to hand. And those pathetic bullets can't do anything to me."

Her smile transformed into a savage grin that showed incredibly white teeth. Teeth that seemed strange, different from when she'd always smiled at him before. Jack slid slowly to the floor as Sally took a step toward the assassin. Everything was blurring badly now. He squinted at Sally as she tossed her hair over her shoulder.

"One thing, Westenra," Sally hissed. "These are special. A present from Somerfield."

She shot the would-be killer in the chest. The pistol's silencer turned the concussive bang to a soft _shhp!_ sound. The bullet punched through the grunt's chest and he took a single step back as red mist puffed up from his shirt, just visible in the overhead porch light. He didn't go down. Barely faltered. He had to be some kind of mutant. One of HYDRA's psychotic super-soldier washouts. Jack swallowed and grabbed the doorframe. He had to get on his feet, get steady, if he was going to help her. It didn't matter if death breathed icy and seductive down the back of his neck, setting his teeth on edge. He refused to just lie down and die while Sally and her kids were in danger.

The guy—Westenra, that's what Sally had called him—Westenra took a step. Laughed. It was almost a giggle. Jack tried to push away from the door and nearly hit the cement. A white-knuckled grip on the doorframe kept him from falling as Westenra took another step.

"You were always a lousy shot, Sally. You think any of your little human friends could ever make that teeny problem just go away? Haha…" Westenra jerked to a halt as Sally lowered the gun…but he wasn't looking at Sally anymore. He was staring at the spot where his trapezius muscle met the rest of his chest. He touched sluggishly bleeding the hole as something flickered against his black shirt. "What…? It's tingling. What did you do? Coat the thing in poison?" Westenra giggled again. "You should know that won't work, either, Sally…"

He trailed off again as the flickering thing grew brighter. One black-gloved hand stole up to his face as he staggered back. He stared at Sally in dawning horror. "What…what did you? What have you done? What is this?" He coughed, a deep retching cough that seemed to tear through his chest like talons. He sank to his knees as black lines crept up from the neck of his shirt, up over his carotid and jugular, unfurling along his cheeks. He gagged. Glittering black ocher spilled from his lips. "What _is_ this?!"

Westenra's words gurgled in his throat, drowning in the sludge dripping from his mouth, but apparently Sally could understand him. She murmured, "A micro-bot engine pumping silver nitrate through your system faster than you can get rid of it. You really should've left when I gave you the chance."

Sally slid the gun into a cleverly concealed holster at her back and turned to catch Jack just as he lost his battle with gravity. Hefting him up, she helped him stumble into the bakery. She kicked the door closed as Westenra sank to the ground.

"Come on, let's get you upstairs and look at your injuries."

"Aren't you worried about someone finding him?"

She shook her head. Glanced once at the door before fixing her gaze on the staircase leading to the second floor. "He'll be ash in a few minutes. That stuff will burn him to nothing pretty fast. Now stop talking, I need to concentrate."

Jack felt her trembling as she halted at the foot of the staircase. He tried to straighten up, realizing she probably couldn't bear his weight all the way up to the top of the stairs. He was just too heavy, especially with his cybernetic arm. But Sally tightened her grip. Drew a deep breath in through her nose and then out slowly through her mouth. Her lips looked strange again. Like she could barely keep them together. As if something other than breath was trying to push its way out of her mouth. But then she tightened the arm she had wrapped around his torso and set her foot on the bottom stair.

"This might hurt a bit," she murmured, and lunged forward. Jack felt a sharp yank through his arm and enough pressure against his back to make his bruised ribs yelp in protest and his bullet wounds ooze fresh spurts of blood. Vertigo slammed into him like a freight train. When he managed to shake his head clear, they were at the top of the stairs. Sally shook so hard her teeth chattered as she helped him move toward the couch. "Just…" She managed to suck in enough air to speak. "Just give me a second."

He noticed her knees wobbling as she headed to a linen closet in the hall close to the living room. She pulled out several dark towels and managed to stumble back to the couch as Jack sank onto it with a muffled groan. Were the kids awake? He didn't want them to see this; it would scare them to death.

Sally sank to the floor and draped a couple of the larger towels over the couch seats. Jack shifted a little, wincing, to sit on one of the thick, terrycloth towels. Sally took his hands.

"I have to strip you down a bit," she murmured. Was that a blush spreading across her cheeks? "So I can get to your injuries. How bad is it?" When he raised an eyebrow, she added, "I know you know enough to accurately diagnose yourself. Anything damaged below the belt?"

The Winter Soldier shook his head and peeled off his black gloves. They were caked in dried blood. He dropped them on a towel Sally had set on the floor. His knuckles were slightly swollen with a little purple bruising, the only sign that he'd broken a few of them punching out some of the killers that had picked up his trail. When he reached for his shirt, he winced. Fire blazed under his ribs. Definitely cracked. Not broken, though. They'd be okay in a few hours. Twelve, tops.

"Here," Sally said. "Let me." She grabbed the hem of his black turtleneck and helped ease it slowly up his torso. Her eyes widened at the sight of the myriad scars carved across his torso. Her fingertips brushed one just above the waistband of his black jeans where a mark had sliced him with a Bowie knife; the touch left a strange tingling sensation behind, even though he usually couldn't feel much when something touched his scars. How was he feeling that?

He knew most of the marks without even having to look in a mirror, faint though they were. It took a lot to leave a scar on a super-soldier, and even then, they didn't show up as vividly as scars on other people. Most of the time you couldn't see them at all, only feel them, slicker than regular skin. How could Sally see them in this dim light?

He expected horror. He expected discomfort at the least. Most people flinched away from the evidence of old wounds like these. Instead she nodded her head when he thanked her and then helped him ease out of the turtleneck completely, without saying a word, revealing the gunshot wounds like dark gaping mouths in his body and the knife wound that had skittered across two ribs—the only reason he wasn't dead. Only then did she speak.

"Oh, my…goodness," she breathed. A slight smile tugged at the corner of his mouth despite the pain. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard someone say that. She touched the two he'd managed to bandage himself. Touched the scarred-looking skin where his prosthetic arm attached to his body. "Jack…" She pressed her lips together. Sucked in a breath. "Let me go get the first-aid kit. Wait here."

Jack counted his heartbeats, sluggish and aching, while he waited for her to come back. She probably didn't have what he needed to pry the last three bullets out of his shoulder, back, and side. But he'd check out her supplies before he went scrounging in the kitchen. If worst came to worst, he'd have to try to see if he could get the flesh and muscle to re-grow around the bullets. He wasn't sure if even his super-soldier healing abilities were up to the task.

Steve had survived being beaten by the Winter Soldier inside one of SHIELD's helicarriers. He'd survived four gunshot wounds, a concussion, broken ribs, and a plunge into the icy waters of the Potomac. Jack knew that, because he'd checked on the other man in the hospital after his world-shattering visit to the Smithsonian. If Steve could do it, could he?

Except Steve had had a hospital. There was that. But Jack had Sally. That would have to be enough.

"Mommy?"

Jack stiffened and Sally nearly tripped coming back into the living room at the sound of the plaintive, sleepy child's voice. Jack didn't even have to turn around to see who had come out of their room. He'd know that voice immediately—little Will. The kid was a pretty light sleeper for a five-year-old. Jack should've remembered that.

Sally hurriedly set the first-aid kit—and it was a pretty _big_ one, the super-soldier noted with no little surprise—on the floor next to the couch and then rushed toward the hallway again. "What's the matter, Will? Did you have a bad dream?"

"I thought I heard Jack."

Even though moving even a little sent the world spinning, Jack reached down and snatched up one of the black towels, throwing it around his shoulders to hide the worst of his injuries in case the kid ran out to see if he'd heard right. Didn't want to scare the kid. But Sally was hustling Will back to his room, saying, "Yes, Jack's here. You can talk to him in the morning. He's not going anywhere. Right now we have some grown-up talk to talk about, okay?"

"Hi, Jack!" Will called from his doorway. Sally shushed him and shut his bedroom door before running back out.

"Sorry," she mumbled, coming around the couch to kneel next to him. "Sorry. The kids have really missed you."

He tried to ignore the stab of guilt at her words. "What about Peter?" He thought of the skinny college kid with the curly hair who'd been Sally's counter-guy. He'd always acted like he had something to hide, but somehow had never even registered as a blip on Sally's radar. "Why couldn't they play with him?"

Sally shrugged as she pulled out what Jack realized were forceps in a sealed, sterilized bag. Apparently she _did_ have the proper tools to remove bullets from people. "He had to go back to New York," she replied softly, opening the bag. She held the forceps with practiced ease and pushed the towel off his shoulders. "Turn around if you can," she added.

It was easier to move—though it still left his vision blurry and his lungs spasming—now that he wasn't standing or trying to move swiftly. He shifted until Sally could get a good look at his back. He'd been lucky, he knew. The bullets weren't meant to kill him. Just incapacitate him. The enemy hadn't counted on having to shoot him so many times in order to preserve their own lives. His metabolism burned through sedatives and tranquilizers almost as fast as the Hulk, which meant tranq darts were out of the question. So there were no shattered bones or anything else. Just ripped muscle and blood vessels pumping blood into the night.

"I don't have any topical to numb this," she murmured. "Can you keep from screaming?"

He nodded. "I've been through worse."

"I don't doubt it," she muttered, and set to work.

The Winter Soldier had to hand it to her—most of the HYDRA doctors who patched him up were butchers compared to her deft touch and gentle manner. Despite the low light, she found each bullet without difficulty and plucked it out, dropping it onto a towel. She seemed to have a hard time with the sight and smell of blood, though. She had to stop frequently to go and stick her head out the window, gasping for air. A wave of guilt tugged at him.

He pushed it away. He'd had no choice but to come here. While everyone hunting him would expect him to run and hide in DC where Captain America made his home base, that was the last place he could go. But no one knew about Sally and his time here. Whistle-Stop was safe, she'd said. He was really starting to believe that, because somehow he'd managed to make it here okay.

"You gonna be all right?" Jack murmured when she'd taken out every bullet he couldn't reach and begun cleaning the wounds with peroxide. The astringent burned in the wounds, sizzling where it met any beginnings of infection his own body hadn't had time to deal with yet.

Sally nodded. "I don't do well with blood," she said. She ducked to place a curtain of auburn hair between them. "But we're almost done."

"I'm surprised, for someone who doesn't handle blood very well, how good you are at this," he said. A probing question hidden in a blandly delivered statement. Her lips quirked into a wry smile, just visible through her hair.

"Necessity is the mother of strength. Are you going to need stitches?"

He shook his head, unsurprised she'd asked. She was used to dealing with mutants with weird powers. No doubt she'd met a few who could heal the way he could. "Just bandages."

She really was a soft touch, he thought as she carefully pressed folded gauze pads to each wound and wrapped them carefully with rolls of bandage. It should've hurt, even with his healing ability—and it did, but nowhere near as much as he'd thought it would. When it was over, Sally smoothed her fingers over the bandage on his shoulder almost in a caress. Jack clenched his jaw and forced himself not to react. He hadn't been touched this much by anyone since the last time he'd been here, and before that…

The force of Pierce's backhand still cracked through his memory from time to time. Jack could still smell the metal and disinfectant that hung so oppressive in the room where they'd wiped his memories again and again. If he didn't push the flashback away, he could still taste the coppery flavor of his own blood pouring into his mouth from Pierce's blow.

It was nice to be touched so gently. So intimately, as if the fingertips resting against his skin acknowledged that this wasn't an object they touched, but a person. He lived, he breathed, he bled. Better than the cold, impersonal hands of his handlers at HYDRA. Sally's touch was anything but cold.

"I really missed you," she whispered so softly he wasn't sure she expected him to hear her.

He swallowed. Met her eyes, so wide behind her coke-bottle glasses. He sighed. If there had been any other choice, he wouldn't have come back here. This wasn't fair to her. She needed help, someone she could depend on. Her kids needed stability. His life was anything but stable.

"I'm sorry I dropped in on you like this," he said.

She shrugged. "You're always welcome here, Jack. You should know that by now. How long are you staying this time?"

He had to bite his tongue before he said something ridiculous, like, "As long as you want me to." She'd want him to stay forever. She needed a handyman and counter-guy now that Peter was gone. She had kids to raise and a business to run. Of course she'd want the help. And this was the safest, nicest place he'd been in a long, long time. He'd gotten used to waking up to the scent of fresh-baked muffins and cake while he'd been here.

Instead of saying something stupid, he said in as toneless a voice as he could manage, "Just until I'm healed up. Don't want to be a burden."

Her hand fell on his shoulder, light as gossamer, warm as an ember in winter. "Jack…you're not a burden. We love having you here. And the guest house _is_ empty. You could stay there as long as you want, just like before. The children would be so happy."

Suddenly he wanted to. He was so tired of running. The only time he hadn't been running in the last few months had been when he'd been here, at Whistle-Stop, in Sally's guest house. But he knew he couldn't stay. Not again. "That wouldn't be a good idea, Sally."

She sighed. Nodded. "Well, you're welcome to stay as long as you need to." She started to get to her feet. Her joints popped and she mumbled something about being old as she started to straight up.

"Sally…" Jack trailed off. She paused, half-risen from her spot. "I…I missed you, too." He blinked. That wasn't what he'd intended to say. Pressing his lips together to keep from saying anything else incredibly stupid, he turned his head away so he wouldn't have to see the light that flickered in her eyes. Sally had to be lonely here in Whistle-Stop, surrounded by people who tormented her children and treated her differently because she was a mutant. Even one with only mild prescience. He cleared his throat. Tried to remember how Bucky Barnes would've played the situation back in the forties. "No one else makes panzerotti like you," he added with a light smile.

Sally's own smile flickered. Dimmed. Jack realized immediately he'd misstepped. Her small laugh held a strange edge to it. "Nobody cooks like me, Jack. I'm the Cake Boss of Whistle-Stop, Confectionary Mastermind. You should know _that_ by now, too." She started gathering up the detritus from the impromptu surgery. "Let me just clean this up real quick. You go ahead and lay down. I thought you might bleed on the couch, but you haven't yet, so the towels are okay. I'll get you some fresh clothes. Some of my husband's old things might fit you."

He tried to say, "I'm fine." Sally pinned him with a sharp gaze. There was a strange, oddly dangerous light in her eyes now, and they gleamed that strange yellow in the shadowy light from the kitchen. The same color they'd been outside when she'd shot Westenra.

"Stay," she growled, and it almost sounded like a growl. Jack's brows furrowed. "Lie down and rest. You're hurt. You came here for some first-aid? Well, you're going to get it."

Baffled by her sudden vehemence, he pulled his gun out of its holster and set it on the arm-rest for a moment, then pulled off his boots. Slowly, he reclined on the couch. A decorative pillow was soft enough to serve as a real pillow. He slid his gun underneath to make sure the kids didn't get to it. He tried to ignore the cold—from loss of blood as well as lacking a shirt in an air-conditioned room—that raised gooseflesh across his exposed skin. Surreptitiously, he watched Sally as she threw away everything that had his blood on it. She put the used medical supplies in a separate trashcan with a sliding-lock on the lid to keep her kids out.

Then she washed her hands, pouring a dollop of bright, lemon-yellow soap into her cupped hands and scrubbing quickly. Jack realized the blood loss had to be getting to him when he noticed that the bubbles clinging to her skin had the tiniest rainbows dancing across their delicate surfaces. Her hair hung a little in her face, coppery tendrils brushing her cheeks and the shoulders of her cream-colored sweater. He wondered drowsily if that sweater was as soft as it looked.

Definitely being affected by the blood loss, he thought. He only got this stupid when he was drunk—rather, Bucky Barnes had always gotten that stupid when _he_ was drunk—or after he'd been hurt pretty badly on a mission. He closed his eyes. He obviously needed sleep if he was getting slap-happy.

It should have surprised him, how quickly he drifted. But it didn't. He was too tired to care. He barely registered the flumph sound of Sally dropping a pile of clothes onto the back of the couch. He was too tired to change. He'd do it later. For now, rest. Sally would wake him if anything happened.

He scarcely noticed when she drew a blanket over him, soft and warm as her smile. She was careful when she lifted his feet and propped them on the couch's arm-rest. She covered them with the blanket, too. The nearby armchair creaked as she sank into it. She wasn't going to stay next to him all night, was she? He wasn't going to die from this, she didn't need to wait up with him.

But then she started to sing, ever so softly. Her voice wasn't the charming, purring sopranos that had been so popular back in the forties. She had a quiet, average voice. One he could imagine soothed her kids when they were trying to go to sleep. It lulled him further into a mental place where he could let his body relax, let the pain wash away a little so he could sleep. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been able to just enjoy a woman singing without a thousand other concerns flooding his mind. This was nice.

_"'Cause you only need the light when it's burning low;  
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow…  
Only know you've been high when you're feeling low,  
Only hate the road when you're missin' home…"_

And the Winter Soldier drifted into sleep, at peace for the first time in two months.

**.**

_The present…_

**.**

Sally Gardner gritted her teeth against the ache throbbing through her veins and parked her car as deep into the shade as possible, where the light would have a harder time reflecting off windshields and side-mirrors and splintered her skull. She gripped the steering wheel and let her head thunk against the cool leather. She had to focus. She had to think. She had to ignore the burning in her throat and the pounding in her head and _think_.

They were trapped now. They'd switched vehicles at the last rendezvous point, as per Jack's instructions. But now what? She lifted her head to stare at her hands gripping the steering wheel so tight her fingers ached. Her knuckles and the tops of her fingers weren't the same pale color as the rest of her. They were raw and red. If she wasn't careful, her fingers wouldn't be the only body parts that looked like that.

She needed her serum. It would help so much…but if she and the children were caught, it could be their downfall. That medicine kept the worst parts of her chained up, limiting her mutant powers. But it also drained her of most of her speed and strength. If whoever had taken Jamie found her and the other children…

Sally swallowed a sob. Tears burned her eyes. Jamie…her baby boy…Those monsters had her baby. Jack had looked into her tear-filled eyes and sworn he'd get her baby back, but they'd both known HYDRA wouldn't stop with Jamie. They wanted leverage against Jack. They wanted him back, their good little toy soldier, ready to aim, shoot, and kill wherever they decided he should. She'd seen the knowledge of how easily HYDRA could get Jack back when they'd taken Jamie. Jack loved Jamie. Loved Becky and Will and Lori, too. If HYDRA threatened them…if Jack couldn't get her son back…

Then he would have to give himself up. He wouldn't be able to take what HYDRA would do to Jamie if he didn't. They'd kill her son. And he'd sworn to her that he would never let that happen.

Lifting her tired eyes to the rearview mirror, she studied her daughters. Will was with Tony Stark and Captain Steve Rogers, two men Jack had told her she could trust absolutely. Will had been so frightened to go by himself to meet with them. To have to crawl through ventilation shafts and…but Jack had guided him all the way, leaving Becky and Lori in Sally's care. Now the seven-year-old and the three-year-old slept so soundly, Sally didn't think a freight train could wake them up.

Her phone rang. Fear iced through her blood, but it did nothing to dull the hot pain in her veins. Her fingers shook as she dug her phone out. She'd faced down monsters, madmen, and rogue mutants in her life…but her children had never been in danger before. It ripped the rug right out from under her feet. She'd never known real fear until this.

She had to clear her throat twice before she managed, "Hello?"

"Sally," a familiar, warm voice said. "It's me."

"Jack," she breathed. "Jack, we're stuck. The sun's out, and my head is splitting. I don't think I can drive."

There was a beat of silence. She sensed him weighing his words, the options, the outcomes. Finally he asked, "Sally, how long has it been since you've taken your serum?"

She sighed. "Three days." Long enough that not only was the medicine no longer dealing with her symptoms, but she was starting to go through withdrawal—both of which she could handle if she could get Lori and Becky somewhere safe. Once she didn't have to worry about them anymore, she could focus on HYDRA. On letting out what the medicine kept locked inside. Let them see how foolish it had been to target her family.

"Are you okay?" There was nothing but concern in his voice. No condemnation.

"Yeah," she mumbled. "I'll be okay, but this headache…There's so much sun, and my hands are starting to get messed up because it's been so long since my last injection."

"Okay. Listen to me, everything's going to be fine, baby. Okay? I have gloves, a long-sleeve shirt, and special sunglasses in the trunk, and the car has a button you can push to add a second layer of tinting to the windows, okay?"

She nodded, trying to ignore the throbbing spots at the edges of her vision. "Okay." That would definitely help. "But Jack…are you sure about all of us going to Stark Enterprises? I mean…you saw what happened to the Stark Mansion a few months back. What if the enemy attacks us there?" She couldn't say HYDRA over the phone. He'd warned her against that. She understood. You couldn't say SENTINEL over the phone, either, without risking the wrong people overhearing.

"I texted Will—"

"Is he okay?" She demanded, heart suddenly beating sharp and hard against her ribs. Will was so young, and they'd asked so much of him…She just wanted her children back where she could protect them.

Jack's voice was gentle and warm when he said, "Will is fine. I made sure. Stark and Captain Rogers know we're coming. It will be okay."

She nodded again. She had to believe that. Will and Jamie would both be all right. Jack would, too. They'd get her baby back, and HYDRA would learn how grave a mistake it had made. And then hopefully she would never have to stop taking her serum again, she could just let it dull all of her edges again, and she could go back to just being a simple baker in a little Virginia coastal town. "I'll see you in New York."

"See you there. Be careful." There was a moment's pause, the soft sound of breathing. Her pulse slowed a little, more a flutter than a pounding now. Jack murmured, "I love you, Sally."

"Right back at ya," she said softly. "Be careful, Jack."

The phone clicked when he hung up, leaving her feeling cold. Gritting her teeth against the wave of pain that would hit her when she got out of the car, she popped the trunk lid and grabbed the pistol Jack had left for her. No one was taking another one of her kids.

She'd kill them first.


	9. I Can't Say No to You

_**Author's Note:**__ I __am so sorry I haven't updated in forever. Life has just been kicking my butt. But my goal is to go back to updating on the first and maybe 20th of every month, okay? Hugs to you guys! Thanks for sticking it out with me! I hope you guys enjoy the new chapter and let me know what you think. Also, hope you guys enjoy the new cover art. I finally found a model that actually looks like Sally! Whoohoo!_

_And the next chap of my Loki-fic, The Edge of Darkest Devotion, will go up as soon as my beta gets through it but she's been sick. She's been such a trooper doing 3 other chaps for me. I gave her a total of 45,000 words to read in about 4 days while sick so she's awesome._

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**Chapter Nine  
I Can't Say "No" to You**

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_8 months ago…_

.

.

The Winter Soldier felt eyes on him. The heaviness of a searching gaze pierced the haze of exhaustion and pain, and his consciousness surfaced slowly. He was inside, unbound, without a shirt. His boots were missing. He lay on his back under a thermal blanket, a thin pillow under his head. A gun pressed into the pillow and into the back of his skull—his gun, exactly where he would've put it if he'd gone to sleep in a relatively safe place.

_So where am I?_ He wondered, _And who is watching me?_

"He'th never waking up," a plaintive voice lamented. A little boy's voice. One the assassin recognized instantly. The tension slowly began to seep out of him.

"Shhh! Will, shut up! Mom said Jack needs to sleep."

He knew that voice, too. Little James. Jamie. He was in Sally's house. The people watching him were her kids. They'd missed him, she'd said…when? When had she said that? What was he doing back here?

His brain was dangerously sluggish, and he recognized the aftereffects of severe loss of blood. He'd been shot. Right. He'd made a mistake, let himself get caught up in the past. Called Captain America. Steve. And someone had found him. He didn't know who, HYDRA or SHIELD or AIM or someone else who'd love to get their hands on Zola's pet killer, but they'd found him, and they'd shot him. A lot. And he'd come here to Sally's because he'd been as close to death as he'd ever come since…since…

Memory crystallized in his skull, a single flickering moment: wind ripping at his clothes and scalding his face with the brutal chill of it, snow whipping across his vision, and his belly trying to crawl into his throat as he plunged from a train over the edge of a bridge and down, down, down. Mountains spearing the sky on either side of him, dark save where the snow blurred them into the grayness overhead, and the bridge, twisting black steel. And clinging to the side of the train, agony in his face, reaching for him even though there was no chance, no hope of a miraculous catch or impossible save…

Steve, screaming denial, watching him fall, tears freezing to his face.

There was a soft intake of breath to his right. Someone whispered, "Whoa…cool." Cold air tingled over cybernetic nerve-endings and the Winter Soldier realized his vibranium arm had slipped out from beneath the blanket in his sleep. The kids could see it.

"Mommy!" Will cried. There was a rapid rustling and a thud, like the kid had jumped to his feet. "Mommy, Mommy! Jack'th got a robot arm like Mr. George! Come thee!"

From a ways away, the assassin heard Sally cry in a whisper, "William Gardner, hush right now! Jack's trying to sleep!"

"But Mommy—"

"I know Jack has an arm like Mr. George's. But he needs to sleep right now. Do you want to wake him up?"

"Yeth!" Will yelped, sounding exasperated. A small smile tugged at the corner of Jack's mouth. He heard something that sounded like flapping noises. "We wanna play with him! And I wanna th'how him my new IG Joe."

"GI Joe," Sally corrected gently. "Now hush. If you can't hush, you can go in your room." There was a low grumbling noise and then quiet. "Thank you."

Footsteps padded as soft as cat paws across the carpet and another presence filled Jack's awareness—body heat, the scent of cookies, and the shush of breathing. Feeling a little more grounded from Will's innocuous chatter, Jack slanted one eye open.

Jamie and Becky stared at him, their faces only a few scant inches from his. Only decades of HYDRA training kept him from jerking back from two pairs of inquisitive, black eyes. Instead he just blinked. Raised one eyebrow. He cleared his throat. "I think television is usually more interesting."

"Our cable's not working," Jamie said. Without turning his head, he yelled, "Mom! Jack's awake!"

Jack winced, flicking his gaze to Sally standing behind the twins. He'd never seen her so relaxed-looking before, barefoot in a baggy t-shirt that fell to her knees and a pair of pajama pants with cupcakes on them. Sally shook her head at Jamie, auburn curls catching hints of streetlights from the window. What time was it?

It was obvious she was trying not to laugh, but finally she gave up.

She laid a hand on Jamie's head. "Can you and Becky go set the table for breakfast?" She asked between giggles. "The sun will be up soon and that means Mommy has to go to work downstairs."

"Okay." He held out his hands, palms out, like he was trying to stop Jack from getting off the couch. "Don't go nowhere. Come on, Becky." Jamie got to his feet, but Becky didn't move. She kept staring at a spot somewhere between the assassin's nose and his collarbone, head cocked to one side, brow furrowed. Jamie nudged her. "Becky?" She twitched away from him.

Sally knelt down next to her and tapped her on the shoulder. Becky grunted, shying away. Sally gently but firmly turned Becky's face away from Jack and towards her. "Rebecca. Please go set the table for breakfast. Jack isn't going anywhere right now." Becky made a noise that was almost a growl and lunged to her feet, stomping into the dining room. Sally sighed. Offered Jack a wan smile. "She doesn't like it when I invade her reality, but she has to learn." She sighed again, watching Jamie stacking plates in his sister's hands. "I don't want her to have to learn, but…"

"You don't want this world to hurt her, either," Jack murmured, sitting up.

Sally laughed, more than a touch of bitterness to the sound, and nodded. She handed him a black sleeveless shirt; he shrugged into it before throwing the blanket off his legs. He felt less naked with his wounds and bandages covered by the shirt, but the silver sheen of his cybernetic arm made his stomach roil. And the kids had seen it.

Jack cleared his throat. "Robot arm?"

She offered a tight smile and a shrug. "Remember, I said a friend from school has a prosthetic arm like yours. It has some cool, Inspector Gadget-type additions built in, though. Anyway," she added, lowering her voice, "how are you? Any lightheadedness from last night? Any fresh bleeding? Anything? I don't smell anything, but better safe than sorry." She glanced over her shoulder at Becky with her stack of plates, studiously placing silverware exactly parallel to each other.

Will poked a fork out of alignment with a giggle and a sly look at his sister. Without missing a beat, Becky slapped his hand. Sally tensed as Will's eyes widened and he let out a wail.

"Mommy! Mommy, Becky hit me! _Mommy!"_

Becky dropped the armful of plastic plates and fistful of silverware with a stupendous, cascading crash in order to clap her hands against her ears. Her shrill cry of utter panic split the air. Two-year-old Lori, half-asleep in her highchair by the table, jerked awake and started in on those shrieking, police siren-sobs toddlers were so skilled at. Jamie backed up against the table and started yelling for his mother. Sally slumped onto the floor by the Winter Soldier's couch, looking torn between the urge to cuddle and the urge to commit homicide.

The screaming drilled straight to Jack's skull. His metal fingers convulsed around the edge of the couch cushion. Screaming. Children screaming. He had no weapons, it wasn't because of him, he hadn't drawn his gun. The gun was still beneath the throw pillow on the couch. No gunshots echoed in the room but they echoed in his skull like vibranium-jacketed ghosts. His index finger twitched and his shoulder ached with the punch of a sniper rifle's kickback. The air was cold in this room, cold and thin, mountain air. He tasted snow. Snow…and ice crystals on the air. Ice crystallizing in his veins. His blood pulsed bitter and chilled under his skin. He could feel the ice creeping through his blood. The stink of ice and metal burned his nose like frostbite.

Something splintered through the frigid stench: the warm, soft scents of sweet vanilla mingling with chocolate. It broke through the burn of winter and frosted metal, melting the chill in his gut. He blinked. Focused on the long fingers and slim hand draped in front of his face just under his nose. Jack frowned. Stared at Sally's hand and upturned wrist for a moment—it smelled like cookies—before turning slowly to look at her.

"Why did you…?"

She shrugged, dropping her hand. "Call it a hunch. Are you okay?" Her voice, soft and smooth and coaxing, helped dull the sharpest edges of the kids' noise. "Jack? Do you need to go outside? Or downstairs? The bakery isn't open yet and it's pretty quiet."

"I…" He trailed off, glancing over at the kids, and bit back a sigh. Jamie was slowly trying to edge away from his siblings but when he passed Lori's highchair, her flailing hands somehow managed to latch onto his shirt with all the strength of an anaconda. Jamie made a noise that sort of sounded like "_glk!_" The ex-soldier suppressed another sigh, put two fingers between his lips, and blew. Hard.

The sharp whistle distracted Jamie and Will, who stopped yelling and crying and just stood there staring at him, awed. Lori's screams quieted. She settled back in her highchair, her killer-grip on her brother's shirt loosening enough for Jamie to slip free. The toddler opened her mouth to start shrieking again when she noticed her brother no longer languished in her tiny clutches, and Jack whistled again, shrill and sharp. Lori snuffled, distracted, and rubbed the backs of her hands against her face.

"I've got Becky," Sally said, pushing to her feet. It only took a few moments for her to herd a frantic Becky into the kid's bedroom. When the living room got quiet, Jack let out a breath. No more screaming. He could breathe now. No more screaming. No more panic.

Screaming kids were _not_ in his job description. If the whistle hadn't worked, he had no clue what he could've or would've done next. These kids were like dominoes—if one went off, it started a cataclysm. How did Sally manage when there was no one around to help her out?

He shouldn't have been thinking about that. About how much help she needed, how much work was always on her plate. It wasn't his business. They weren't friends. He couldn't afford friends in his kind of life and she certainly couldn't afford the kind of friend he would make. Not with four kids.

The assassin thought of how she'd calmly shot their would-be attacker the night before. She'd been carrying a gun. What kind of baker, even the so-called Cake Boss of Whistle-Stop, carried a gun? When had she started? She hadn't made a habit of that when he'd been here before. Had something happened in the few short months he'd been gone?

"Mrewt." Only the brutality of HYDRA training kept him from jumping at the soft brush of something silky and warm against his ankle. He glanced down, tension ripping through his body, fingers twitching toward the gun underneath the pillow…and relaxed when he stared down into a pair of galaxy-blue eyes framed by multicolored fur. Starbright, the bakery's mascot, hopped into his lap, turned around twice on his knees, and curled up in a circle of mostly white and cream cat-floof. "Mew."

"Uh…"

Lori giggled and threw up her arms in excitement. "Poofy!"

"Poofy, leave Jack alone," Jamie said, smiling. "He's not gonna feed you people-food."

The cat's head jerked up and she narrowed her eyes at the kid before looking up at Jack almost pleadingly. "Mrewt?" She kneaded his knees, purring.

He cleared his throat. "Uh," he mumbled, feeling ridiculous, "right. Uh…no people-food…for you." Starbright stopped purring abruptly and leaned back, eyeing him with disdain. She leapt off his knees and padded away down the stairs, swishing her tail. He was reminded why the kids called her Poofy—her butt looked like a pair of fluffy, fur pantaloons. "Anyway, uh—"

"Can you show us that?" Jamie asked. He tugged at his shirt-collar to straighten it, smoothing a hand over the clownfish on the front. "The noise?" Will was nodding and Lori still stared, sucking on two fingers like they might miraculously offer sustenance. "How'd you do that?" Jamie added.

Uh…

"Practice. Now come on," he pushed off the couch—slowly. A dull ache throbbed through his lower abdomen, but he knew his own body well enough to tell he was already on the mend. He'd have to be on his way soon. A day, maybe. Two, tops. He couldn't afford to lead HYDRA or SHIELD or whoever had shot him back to Whistle-Stop. He forced his face into a neutral expression when the thought had a scowl stealing across his face. He didn't want to scare the kids. "Let's pick up these dishes for your mom."

Jamie and Will exchanged a glance. Will slid his hands in the pockets of his pajama pants—which were covered in what looked like a fluffy marshmallow man with black eyes and two girls, one in yellow armor and one in a pink superhero suit—and rocked back on his heels. "Then will you th'how uth how?" His grin displayed a missing tooth in the front. When had that happened?

"Maybe," he said. "Later. Dishes, soldier." The Winter Soldier froze, the sickening word twisting in his gut, souring in his mouth. Soldier? _Soldier?_ Will was four. He was only four. Jamie was barely seven. How could he call either them…?

But the boys only grinned and offered sloppy salutes.

"Aye-aye, Captain!"

"Yeth, thir!"

**.**

By the time Sally came back out with a much calmer Becky, the table was set and the dishes that had fallen on the floor had been put in the sink. She stared at the table, complete with seated children waiting patiently for her return, then looked at Jack, who stood by the window, checking the dawn-lit front yard through a slit in the blinds. He wondered if Sally realized what he was doing—checking to see where the body from last night had gotten to. But there was no corpse. Nothing to indicate Sally had shot someone on her front step less than twenty-four hours ago.

_He'll be ash in a few minutes. That stuff will burn him to nothing pretty fast_, she'd said. The words tickled at his memory, calling to the ghosts of war still frozen in the ice. That stuff…What stuff? _A micro-bot engine pumping silver nitrate through your system faster than you can get rid of it_. Why would such a relatively small amount of silver nitrate kill someone? Especially someone who apparently possessed a healing mutation that allowed their body to adapt to the stuff? Not only kill them, but incinerate them?

Enhanced mutation? Extraterrestrial? Spliced DNA? Super soldier using an unstable formula? The assassin shunted the thoughts aside to meet Sally's eyes. The gratitude there surprised him. He offered a brief nod before turning his gaze back to the window and the lack of dead body.

"All right," Sally said, "who wants scrambled eggs and delicious toast?" A chorus of "me!" made her laugh and she headed into the kitchen.

The kids talked at the table—well, Will and Jamie talked; Becky sat silent for the most part and Lori burbled at her spoon while straining to see over the highchair tray to study her apparently fascinating toes—and Sally offered bits to the conversation as she dished up scrambled eggs with cheese, jam toast, and sausage. Jack ignored her, and she seemed willing to let him, even keeping the kids from trying to talk to him. He didn't want them to get used to his presence again. He'd be taking off probably no later than tomorrow. If they got the idea he'd be around awhile, it would be that much harder on them when he left.

Which made no real sense anyway, since he'd barely interacted with them when he'd been here before. Throwing the occasional stick for Sally's three Golden Retrievers or helping Will get something down off a shelf didn't count; neither did watching, what? Two, three movies with the kids? Four, tops?

How had the enemy found him? He'd been so careful. Had someone tagged Steve's number? That meant the assassin couldn't call him. Probably couldn't contact him in any way. Mail, email, phone…Who knew if someone dangerous had those communication lines under surveillance? He bit back a word Sally would no doubt object to and sighed. How long could he keep running before they found him? In this age of internet and GPS and all the other not-so-fun gadgets HYDRA and SHIELD and AIM and Stark Industries had cooked up, the world was a small, small place.

"Jack?" Sally's soft voice broke through his reverie. "Would you come downstairs with me please?"

Brows knitting together, he glanced once at the table and the kids devouring their eggs. If Sally thought they'd be fine up here by themselves, obviously she knew better than he did. He followed her down the steps to the bakery portion of the house.

**.**

She led him into the industrial kitchen; without saying a word, she flicked on the ovens, pulled down several mixing bowls and cutting boards from the cupboards, and pulled several baskets of fruit out of the fridge. Next she thumped three bowls covered in small towels onto the counter. Removing the towels revealed what looked like dough. Sally set a bag of flour next to them.

Two knives slid from their places in the chopping block with soft whispers. Jack's eyes widened when Sally flipped one knife, the stainless steel winking silver in the light…and caught it by the blade in an expert, lightning-fast move so the blade hung between her fingertips. Not a drop of blood marred the knife. She offered it to him. He eyed it. Cautiously took it from her, careful to keep the blade from nicking her skin when she let it go. She offered him a small, hopeful smile.

"I need to talk to you about something. Will you help me chop these strawberries? Pie's going to be in high demand come this afternoon and I don't have enough strawberry to meet demand."

He arched an eyebrow. "How do you know what people will want?"

The hopeful smile bloomed into a grin. "Call it a—"

"Hunch," he mumbled, and found himself smiling. It had probably been a stupid question, in all honesty. "Sure." It was the least he could do, since she hadn't tossed him out when he'd just appeared as if by magic on her doorstep, covered in blood and half dead.

Sally indicated one of the double-sinks with a lift of her chin. "Wash your hands. Antibacterial soap. Don't worry, it's hypoallergenic and eco-friendly. A friend of mine in New York buys it for me and ships it down here. She's all about the green."

The water heated deliciously warm against the skin of his real hand; the synthetic nerve-receptors in his vibranium arm relayed the water temperature, a nice 105 degrees. Hot enough to kill anything nasty, and almost too hot to bear but not quite. Hot enough to sear away his nightmares and the last bit of frost from that brief brush of memory upstairs, certainly. After a nightmare, he drank water this hot to help chase it away. Sally's "hypoallergenic and eco-friendly" soap filled the air with a sharp, sweet scent. Jack thought it might've been eucalyptus mixed with some sort of flower. Her celadon hand-towels were embroidered with smiling daisies in three different colors.

_Thwok-thwok-thwok-thwok. Scrrrr, scrrrr. Thwok-thwok-thwok-thwok_. For a few minutes, only the sound of chopping berries and scraping the slices into a bowl filled the kitchen. The occasional oven dinged to tell Sally they were preheated to a waiting temp of two-seventy. A scarlet clock in the shape of a blooming rose ticked on the custard-yellow wall; Sally glanced at it every five minutes as it grew closer to seven-thirty.

It was strange, he thought. Strange that he felt like he could do this forever. It was simple, easy. The fate of nations didn't hinge on whether he cut the strawberries into four chunks or five. The deaths of millions didn't rest on whether he filled the bowl Sally had given him. And she wouldn't send icy hot electricity ripping through his body or beat him until his mouth filled with blood for something as insignificant as shifting his weight or looking anywhere but straight ahead.

"What did you want to talk to me about?" The Winter Soldier asked after Sally had washed her hands of berry juice, dried them, and powdered them with flour; it was six minutes until the hour and she'd just pulled out a rolling pin and pie tins. "And are you sure the kids are okay up there?" He didn't hear anything and that sent nerves crawling up and down his spine like insects.

She nodded. "Jamie can get Lori out of her high-chair and get her cleaned up. She's potty-trained, so she won't need me to change any diapers. It's a weekend, so they don't have school. They're watching cartoons; I'm pretty sure I hear the opening music for _Hotel Transylvania_."

Jack narrowed his eyes. He didn't hear anything, and the serum had given him enhanced senses. He closed his eyes briefly and focused. Ever so faintly, as if the sound came through more than a couple closed doors, he heard someone singing, but so softly he couldn't make out the words or even most of the tune. The assassin slanted a look at Sally as she rolled out the dough for the pie crust on a baking sheet. How had she heard that?

"I'd really like you to stay, Jack."

He froze. The chopping knife clacked against the cutting board when he set it down abruptly. He'd thought they had an understanding. She'd always said no pressure, no prying, no questions. Nothing. She would let him be. So why was she insisting on pushing this now? Especially when it was clear he'd only come to her because he'd had no other choice after getting shot…

The black-matte gun Sally had pulled from her jeans. The ease with which she'd killed. _You've already tried twice…I'm surprised you even had the guts to try attacking me here. I wouldn't suggest trying again…_His surprise when their assailant had actually been after Sally. They'd obviously had a history. She'd known the would-be shooter's name, and he'd known hers. And that taunt…_Down by the Sally Gardens, my true love and I did meet…_Jack remembered the last time he'd seen Sally when she'd been involved in something shady down on the beach with the guy she was friends with, Hannibal King. They'd been doing a favor for someone. Sally had attacked him because she hadn't realized who it was in the darkness, and the way she'd fought…she'd managed to make him feel every punch, short as the scuffle had been.

She could fight. She could shoot. She didn't balk at killing. She hadn't flinched when he'd bloodied her lip during that short skirmish. And she never pressed him for answers because, she'd said, she understood the need for secrecy.

The Winter Soldier wiped off his hands on a towel and turned to her. Sally pushed her glasses back up her nose and kept rolling the pin over the flattened dough, knuckles white on the pin-handles, until he reached out with his vibranium hand. Touched the back of her hand gently, careful not to hurt her. The touch of fragile skin against cold metal sent a strange pulse through the cybernetic nerves in his hand. Sally went very still. She bent her head and her frizzy ponytail swept over one shoulder, revealing the vulnerable line of her neck. A burn scar the color of plum wine ran in a thick, three-inch long line along her carotid artery.

"Are you in trouble, Sally?"

Her hands started to shake. She jerked them away from the rolling pin, folding her arms and pressing her hands against her sides. She hunched her shoulders and looked away from him.

He had no idea what made him do it—what kind of mad impulse or computer virus running through the circuits in his arm or bizarre hypnotic suggestion tricked him into thinking this would in any way be a good idea—but he lifted his hand and laid it on her shoulder. A tremor went through her. She bit her lip. He noticed she'd cut her mouth, a deep cut that hadn't healed yet. From last night? He hadn't noticed any injuries on her before falling asleep but he'd been pretty out of it.

"Sally?"

She covered her mouth with one hand. Nodded.

"Yeah," she whispered. "I'm in trouble." She squeezed her eyes shut. Something dark spilled from the corner of her eye but before it could roll down her freckled cheek, she snatched up a small towel and pressed it to her face; he hadn't realized she'd been wearing mascara, but that must've been where the dark drop had come from. A sob rattled out of her. "We're in trouble, Jack. Please stay. Just until it blows over."

He turned her to him because he needed to see her expression. Needed to make sure this wasn't some kind of trick. But the mute misery and quiet fear in her eyes told him it was no ruse. Whatever was happening had her scared; she'd just been hiding it for the kids' sake.

Jack thought of the killer, Westenra, who'd aimed a gun at Sally's back. She'd been expecting him. She'd been ready for him. In a place she'd always maintained was safe for people on the run, she'd been expecting to have to shoot a man with a gun. But she wasn't packing up or getting ready to take off with the kids. Why stay if Whistle-Stop wasn't safe anymore?

"You probably want to know why we're not leaving," she murmured. She sniffled, squeezed her eyes shut. Pinched the bridge of her nose as if trying to ward off a headache. The tension seemed to coil through her body like wire. "This is still the safest place for us. What happened last night was a fluke."

"Who was that guy?"

Sally flattened her hands against the counter, leaning forward and hunching her shoulders, her entire body braced for something. She blew out a long, slow breath. An odd smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

"One of my…exes."

"I beg your pardon?" Exes? As in…ex-boyfriends? Ex-husbands? Ex-lovers? What?

She made a face, mouth twisted with self-loathing. "We were…intimate when I was younger. Before I found the twins, before Will and Lori were born. Before I met my husband. A friend-of-a-friend sort of thing. A girlfriend introduced us. Dani." Sally shook her head. "We were all friends…or I thought we were. Me, Dani and her brother, King—you met him when you were here before. And Westenra. His name's Luke, actually," she added. "I stopped calling him that when I left the group."

"Did you leave because you met your husband?" Hadn't she said she met her husband in Whistle-Stop?

A soft sigh. A rueful smile curving her mouth until the cut across her lip cracked open. Blood beaded up, miniscule drops glittering like tiny rubies. Sally flicked the tip of her tongue over the cut, eyes drifting shut. She drew a deep breath. The tension twisted through her hunched shoulders. Finally she opened her eyes. Nodded.

"Sort of. That and…another reason. Dex got me out of there. He…" She tightened her grip on the counter. "We met outside of the group after Westenra and I had a fight and I'd taken off for a bit. I knew I'd come back because of Dani and King. Dex let me…bring him in. So he could show me it was dangerous."

"Was this some kind of…cult? A gang? What?"

Sally's fingers raked through her hair, snagging on her scrunchie. She yanked it out. Snapped it around her wrist. Flour streaked in a line of soft dove-gray through her frizzy, dark auburn curls. Without looking at him, she starting smoothing the rolling pin over the raw pie crust again.

Taking his cue from her, Jack went back to chopping berries. Sally's movements snapped with frenetic energy from the corner of his eye.

"It's hard to explain. I guess you could call it a gang." She slammed the rolling pin to the side and snatched up a pie tin. Despite her jerky movements, she settled the crust into the tin with slow care. "I don't like talking about it but I guess you have a right to know some stuff since Westenra almost shot you last night. So Dani—Danica—she was my friend. I thought. She and her brother took me in after I got out of school. Helped me get a job at a bakery where I could apprentice, learn the tricks of the trade, you know?" Jack caught her flicking her tongue over the still-bleeding cut every so often. "I met Westenra. King and Dani were a thing at the time, too. We were all together, all of us, all the time except when I was at work. Like a family. I…thought I was happy. But then…"

In a split-second her entire expression went blank and the tension drained from her body. The hair on the back of Jack's neck prickled. He knew that blankness, that limpness like an empty doll. She'd shut off her emotions. He hadn't known civilians could do that, just turn off the receptors in the amygdala. The only reason he even recognized it was that he'd seen that expression a thousand times before—in the mirror.

Sally took a bowl from the fridge and peeled back a layer of cling-wrap. Diced strawberries, red raspberries, and blackberries, powdered with some mixture of stuff Jack didn't recognize, glittered with a layer of sugar. Using a scoop from a nearby drawer, Sally began dishing the pie filling into the tin.

Another reason. Besides the husband, what could've driven her away from a good relationship with this Westenra guy? What had he done to make her leave? Another girlfriend? Some kind of betrayal?

"Did he hurt you?" Jack blurted. The words sliced the air, sharp enough to draw blood. Sally froze. He cleared his throat. "Westenra. Did he ever hurt you?"

Her fingers crept up to lay trembling against the burn scar slashing across her carotid. She swallowed. Cleared her throat. "Yeah. I…yeah. You think, before you get into a relationship like that, that it'll never happen to you. You'll recognize the warning signs and get out before it gets that far. But I didn't realize…" Her fingertips pressed into the side of her neck. Her eyes, golden brown like maple sugar candy, stared off into the distance. "I didn't understand what was happening until later. Until Dex and King told me what he'd done. I didn't understand."

She didn't speak for a long time, but she kept kneading the side of her neck, fingers flexing. Pale spots stood out against the golden of her skin. She sucked on the cut on her lip, worrying it between her teeth.

It took several moments before she seemed to realize she'd forgotten about the pie in her hand. Shaking herself, she set it on the other counter beside the industrial-sized ovens and pressed the buttons to preheat it to the right temperature. Then she just stopped and stared at nothing, the breath whistling through her clenched teeth. She began absently rubbing the bend of her arm where he'd seen the track marks months ago.

"Sally?"

She jumped when he murmured her name. "What? Yeah? What?"

"What did this guy do?" He couldn't think of what it could possibly be if she hadn't realized it until after the fact.

Her laugh was brittle as dead leaves skittering through a cemetery, cold, bitter. She gripped her elbow with one hand and rubbed the left side of her neck with the other, a smile half-rueful and half-disgusted twisting her lips.

"You remember you asked if I was on drugs? Because of the marks on my arms? And I said I was taking special medicine. Intravenously."

After a moment, he nodded.

"Westenra made me sick," she said after a long, taut silence that thrummed with the things she hadn't said, heavy with the weight of her trust. He wondered if anyone else knew these things about her. She'd always said she couldn't trust the people in town…

She started laying crust in a second tin. "When we were together, he…infected me with a disease. He did it on purpose. The medicine I take helps keep the symptoms in check. But it also hampers my mutant powers. I used to be clairvoyant." She shook her head. "Not anymore. Now it's just…hunches." She laughed again, but not like anything was funny. Her eyes stayed fixed on the pie slowing filling with berries. "And Westenra came here looking for me. I don't know if Danica sent him or if he just happened to be in the area and smelled me…" Sally shot him a wild-shy glance and forced a smile. Smoothing down the top of the pie crust seemed to soothe her.

"Anyway," she said at last, "just until I know we're safe…would you please stay? I'd feel better."

Dark, cool eyes studied her with clinical detachment. The Winter Soldier was good at faking a lack of emotion when needed, and he needed it now. The protective instincts that had been prodded awake, dredged from the subconscious of Bucky Barnes by proximity to so many civilians, demanded he agree immediately. But he had to weigh the pros and cons. What if staying put Sally and the kids in more danger? SHIELD and HYDRA were both still searching. What if whatever charm or good luck that had been sticking to this place was gone now? Westenra had found Sally; what if the HYDRA hunters found him?

Sally was sick. The thought left an odd feeling in his gut. How sick, exactly? Was she terminal? And what about the kids? What would happen to them if they lost their mother to this illness that some sicko had deliberately infected her with?

Westenra had smelled her. _Smelled_ her? How? Mutant abilities, probably. Even a super-soldier couldn't smell prey from too far off.

Cold logic dictated he leave tonight. He'd be healed enough by then. But those protective instincts, and the restless ghost of Bucky Barnes floating around in the back of his skull, demanded otherwise. That ghost wanted to stay. Wanted to protect Sally whatever demons were trying to crawl out of her past and hurt her and the kids now.

"I guess you want to know," she mumbled, brushing back a lock of hair. She started setting up a third pie crust in its tin and scooping filling into it. "You're probably curious. Makes sense." The scoop rattled against the plastic bowl of razzleberry. A muscle twitched under her eye and another clenched in her jaw as she smoothed out the filling in the third pie and covered the berries with a circle of raw crust. "I, uh…what I've got, it's H—"

He touched her shoulder and she fell silent.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he said. "I'll stay if you need me to."

She nodded and another dark droplet squeezed from the corner of her eye. She quickly caught it on the edge of a dishtowel, wadded up the towel, and tossed it into a white wicker hamper near the far end of the kitchen for dirty kitchen laundry. Another mascara teardrop. She must've had a pretty subtle touch with makeup since he almost never noticed her wearing any.

"Thanks, Jack. I know you'd rather not, so…appreciate it."

"Do you have any suspicions _at all_ about why he came here?" He'd tried to kill her before, but why? For leaving their little cult or whatever it was? For leaving him? The answer mattered, because it told the Winter Soldier whether anyone else might come looking for Sally and her family.

The oven dinged. Sally slipped on a quilted mitt and pulled the oven open. The three pies clanged softly against the oven racks and the door shut with a hollow gong-sound. She popped the mitt off and set a timer on the stove, but the assassin knew she was turning his question over in her mind, considering the angles, all the reasons to tell him and all the reasons she probably shouldn't. He knew there were pieces missing from this story. Just what kind of "group" she'd been a part of. How her husband had known these people were dangerous. Whether they were coming for her. Whether they'd been the ones to kill her husband.

But she'd never pressed him for answers he couldn't give, and he wouldn't do it to her unless he had no choice. Let her keep her secrets, since she allowed him his own. He owed her that much and more for helping him.

"The medicine I take for the virus isn't experimental," she said. "It's been used on other victims to treat symptoms with great success. But it's never been used on two people who later…came together and had children. Until Dex and me." She glanced toward the stairs as child-laughter bubbled down the steps. "Only one other person has ever been _born_ with the disease before, and he's…very unusual. Danica and the others always wanted to study him, but he's good at staying off the radar. So…"

She pinched the bridge of her nose. Sighed.

"So they want other lab rats to study."

"Wait," as sickness churned in his stomach and his guts turned to ice, as memories of needles and electric saws and leather straps and blinding lights flooded his brain, "are you saying these people want to _experiment_ on—"

"Yes. They want my kids, Jack."

.

_The present…_

.

Agony shuddered through Sally Gardner's abdomen as the dry heaves tapered off. Gasping for breath, she slumped back into the driver's seat of her car, managed to tug the door closed, and shut her eyes against the light splintering her skull even through the thick, specialty sunglasses Jack had gotten for her. A dull ache throbbed through her teeth and her skin stung as feeble UV rays pierced cloud cover, double-tinted windshield and windows, and her black sweater. Stress, hunger, exhaustion, and fear spiked through her brain in a vicious headache.

She had to drive. She had to drive now. They were almost to Stark Enterprises and the looming spike of concrete and steel that was the Avengers Tower.

But the sun…It drove needles of pain through her eyes even through the sunglasses. Heat flashed through her knuckles when she curved her fingers around the steering wheel; the raw, blistered sunburns healed quickly, but not so quickly they didn't hurt whenever she moved her hands. But none of that mattered. She had to get to Will. She had to get Lori and Becky somewhere safe.

Gritting her teeth, ignoring the pain in her jaw and the scent-induced nausea—Lori was snacking on baby biscuits and the smell reminded Sally of fresh cat vomit—she pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward Avengers Tower.

A press of a button allowed her to activate the built-in Blue Tooth device when her phone rang.

"You almost there, Sally?" Jack's voice eased some of the pain pulsing through her temples. Lori giggled at the familiar voice on the Blue Tooth and reached through the front seats for the console, burbling the assassin's name. "Give me your ETA."

"Ten minutes, I think."

"You okay?" He must've heard the strain in her voice. "Maybe you should take a booster—"

She shook her head, but then realized he couldn't see her. "No. I need to be able to fight. I need to be able to help you."

"Sally—"

"I'm okay, Jack. It's just my photokemia, I can handle it. Really," she added, voice softening. "I'm okay. As long as we get this done in the next few days, I'm good. And if it goes longer than that…" If they couldn't get Jamie back by then…if they couldn't save her baby before her disease caught up with her…"Then I'll take a booster, I promise. I'll see you in ten?"

"Yeah. I'm already here. I'll make sure you get the proper welcome."

A pause, and her heightened senses picked up the sound of quiet, strained breathing over the phone. Something had happened; he'd been injured. When they got to Stark, she'd make sure that got taken care of. The macho idiot. He'd probably spent the last two days busting down walls, cracking skulls, taking names, and chewing bubble gum. Also probably shooting people. He needed looking after.

Then again, she thought as a cramp ripped through her body, so did she.

"We're going to get Jamie back, Sally."

"I know." And she did. She wouldn't rest until they got her son back. And she knew Jack wouldn't either. "See you in ten."

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**Author's Note:** _So fyi in case you guys were thinking this fic would be like Darkness There and Nothing… (my Loki-centric fic in the same universe as_ Winter's Tide)_, and span a long long time, it doesn't. There's probably only going to be about 20 chapters total. So tell your friends and have them come check me out, yeah? Huggles to you all! Hope you enjoyed!_


	10. A Simple Life

_**Author's Note:**__ hey everyone! Due to illness, my beta couldn't get this back to me in time for it to go up on Monday but it's going up now! She finally managed to get through it, poor thing. Anyway, hope you guys enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think. _

_And for those of you who don't remember what happened last time, I decided I'm going to do a recap blurb at the beginning of each chap. Sort of like what they do when the narrator says "Last time on Power Rangers..." At least they used to do that when I was a kid. Don't know if they still do. Anyway, so this way your memory will get jogged and you'll understand what's happening. Okay? So let me know what you think of the chapter and I hope you have an awesome November!_

_**Last Time on Once in the Winter's Tide:**__ Tracked down by mysterious soldiers after trying and failing to make contact with Steve, a badly-wounded Bucky shows up on Sally's doorstep in need of medical attention. Before she can escort him inside, they are attacked by a man Sally calls "Westenra." Sally shoots him with a silver nitrate-filled bullet and then brings Bucky inside to stitch him up. The next morning Sally asks Bucky to stay around for a while. At first he is reluctant, until she reveals that Westenra is a member of a cult-like group she belonged to in her younger years who is after her and her children because of the way an unnamed illness Westenra infected Sally with in the past has combined with her biological children's mutant genetics. Bucky agrees to stay until the threat is eliminated._

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**Chapter Ten**

**A Simple Life**

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_7 1/2 months earlier..._

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It was beyond strange—like the world was spinning in a cyclone around him while he stood still, frozen in time. There had never been a time that he could remember clearly when he hadn't been on the move, sprinting from place to place after a target or back to his handlers, shuffled around like a ticking time bomb. And now here he was, trapped in this small town with the self-proclaimed Cake Boss of Whistle-Stop...because she and her kids were in some kind of trouble, and somehow, he'd fallen into the pitiless quicksand trap of caring.

Late summer on the east coast promised a punch of heat but only ever delivered misty chill in the early mornings, warm breezes in the middle of the day, and cool evenings after splashy, fiery gold sunsets. The Winter Soldier had endured vicious heat in the past—the Sahara and Mojave weren't exactly walks in the park when decked out in eighty pounds of body armor and incendiary gear—and he despised the cold with bone-deep loathing, but the weather was perfect for him to wear a jacket. He needed the long sleeves to hide his vibranium arm. Sally seemed to get it without having to be reminded; she never asked him to take the jacket off except once, to inspect the faint scars left from the wounds that had brought him to her.

Of course, Jack was never alone upstairs with her again except that one instance, either. He had no idea what would happen if he let himself be alone with her. He had now idea how she did it, but whenever they'd been alone before he'd taken off the first time, Sally had always managed to get his jacket off.

Now the assassin lay on a wheeled board Sally had provided and twisted a wrench to tighten up a leaky pipe under one of the sinks and wondered just what he was doing here. Playing Mr. Fix-It. A heater, two ovens, a faulty pipe in the basement, a busted garbage disposal and a dishwasher that wouldn't drain: all repaired thanks to the local hitman-turned-handyman. And now the kids kept singing this song whenever he picked up their mom's toolbox.

A high, lisping voice pierced his focus. Jack recognized the words to _that song_ as Will slid in his sock-feet into the kitchen.

_"..don't you worry, I'll jutht thhow you my amazing technique!_  
_Now let me glue dat, glue dat and thcrew dat, thcrew dat!_  
_Any random chore you got, well I can do dat, do dat!_  
_Or maybe I'll just rewire your houthe for fun!_  
_I got ninety-nine problemth but a thwitch ain't one!"_

The singing abruptly stopped. There was a giggle, a rustling noise, and then the immediate warmth of a small presence hovering by the Winter Soldier's upraised knees. He didn't look away from the task overhead.

"Hi, Jack."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "Hi, Will."

"Whatcha doooing?"

"Last time I checked, you had eyes. What do you think I'm doing?"

"Helping Mommy and making it tho the think doethn't thpit on uth anymore."

"Good guess," he said with a final turn of the wrench. He thrust the tool out towards the kid. "Put that in the tool box and give me the duct tape." He just needed to touch up a couple things and then he'd be finished.

Will pushed the roll of tape into his hands after dropping the wrench in the box. "How long will the think thtay fixthed?"

He tore off a piece of tape with his teeth and put it in place, smoothing it down. "A while."

"What if it breakth again?"

"Then someone will have to fix it." Last piece of tape.

"You?"

Jack noticed an odd hitch in the kid's voice and tried to push away how it niggled at him. He knew what the kid was angling for; Will was smart. He liked having someone around, even if it was just on the periphery of his life. A not-really-but-close-enough-when-you're-four dad figure, the assassin supposed.

But no way was he raising Will's hopes. Once he managed to track down the men after Sally's kids and took care of them, got her out of the trouble she was in, he was out of there. He couldn't have a normal life. A simple life. HYDRA had made sure of that.

He offered a toneless, non-commital "maybe" and slid out from under the sink. "It's Saturday; go play baseball or something."

Will rocked back on his heels. "You wanna come?"

Jack got to his feet and hoisted the toolbox. "Uh...not today, bud, okay?"

He paused as the word echoed in his head and seemed to pulse in his throat. _Bud_. It had popped out of his mouth without conscious thought. Three letters. One syllable. A thousand ghosts of memory whispering like music, so soft he couldn't make out the words even though the melody hummed familiar and haunting under his skin. Flashes and phantoms...

The thump of a baseball impacting the thick rawhide of a catcher's mitt. The sweet smell of wet grass freshly cut and earth damp with the last traces of rain. Puffs of dust from a thick canvas sack and sunlight warm on the back of his neck and the thwack of a wooden bat. _Bud. Here it comes, bud. Eye on the ball, bud. Good swing, bud._

That voice...rich and warm...so much pride in the words. Who...?

But he knew. His father. No, no, not _his_ father. The Winter Soldier had no family. HYDRA was mother and father, both. No, the man whose voice punched him in the pit of his stomach was James Barnes' father. Another ghost in a sea of half-remembered faces.

The Winter Soldier shook his head to clear it and focused on Will, who still gazed up at him with a sparkle of hope in his dark eyes. Had the kid tried his oft-used "please oh please" tactic while the assassin had been distracted?

"Maybe later, all right?" A Herculean effort squeezed the feeble words from his throat. Will sighed and nodded before trudging out of the kitchen. Jack ignored the pang in his chest as he headed for the utility closet where Sally wanted him to dump the toolbox. The kid needed to learn. He wasn't Will's dad. He wasn't Sally's...whatever. He was only there to protect them and help out with some of the maintenance, since the local handyman had a death-wish and seemed to think Jack wouldn't break his arm for insulting Sally's mutant-genetics.

Of course he wouldn't. He couldn't. Jack knew he had to keep a low profile. But when Mr. Quintana came into the bakery with his snide comments and condescension, Jack had to wonder what the guy would've done if he'd known just who was staying in Sally's guest house.

But no one could know, or they could all end up dead. HYDRA was still out there and so was SHIELD. He couldn't take anymore risks. Not if he could help it.

**.**

The problem with being on the run from not one but two—technically three, counting AIM—incredibly dangerous, highly competent, multi-national military-esque agencies was that the sticky tendrils of their spy-webs ran through the entirety of the internet, including the dark net. Which made it more than a little difficult for the average Joe to do a search if they were trying to stay off any intelligence agency's rader.

Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, wasn't anything close to the average Joe, but he was still having some problems. He'd scoured the net, delving into government databases, eviscerated what websites he could without tripping alarms...but he hadn't found a single byte of data about Luke Westenra or any known associates.

That guy...he was lucky Sally had shot him a few weeks ago, or Jack would've been hard pressed to keep himself from indulging in a little retribution. Westenra had come after Jack's landlady and her innocent kids, probably to experiment on them, and that was _after_ he'd infected Sally with...

Actually, Jack thought, setting his laptop on the kitchen counter in the guest house, he didn't know what Sally had. Not one-hundred-percent. A muscle in his jaw flexed as he filled a glass with hot water and knocked it back like a vodka shot. She'd started to say H-something, and he'd gotten a pretty good idea. HIV. What kind of sick person deliberately infected their lover with HIV? And didn't that mean Will and Lori had it, too? Jamie and Becky weren't Sally's biological kids, but the little ones...Westenra had probably made them sick too. Sally...little Lori...Will...

The glass shattered in the assassin's grip. Jagged pieces tinkled against the marble countertop and the tile floor. He stared at his hand, at the slivers embedded in his fingertips and palm drawing tiny drops of scarlet blood. He hadn't even realized what he was doing until the glass had crumbled in his grip.

"Jack?" The front door swung open soundlessly. The doorknob knocked against the opposite wall. Sally's voice echoed off the tiles, concern softened by uncertainty. "You in here?"

He slammed the laptop closed with his uninjured hand. She couldn't guess what he was up to. It wouldn't...it wouldn't be _right_ to burden her with the knowledge of what he meant to do if he could manage it.

Westenra's associates posed a danger to Sally and her family. Obviously that danger had to be eradicated. But even though she'd shot Westenra without flinching, Jack hesitated to test whether his landlady would look at him the same way if she knew he'd methodically researched and stalked the targets hovering just outside her orbit. Killing when someone had a gun on you was one thing. Premeditated assassination was something else.

"In here," he called, and grabbed a paper towel to blot the blood. Didn't want her to start fussing over him. Eventually he'd have to kill Westenra's cohorts—the one Sally called Danica and her nameless brother—out of self-preservation; Sally's kindness was making him soft.

She trudged into the kitchen, a wraith in the dimness from the single low-watt bulb over the stove. A slouchy, black sweater dulled her usually warm skin to dust-and-ashes, and her eyes held exhausted shadows.

Dark brows drew together at the sight of her. "You all right, Sally?"

"I was going to ask you the same thing, actually. I stopped by to talk to you and then I thought I..." The words died away into shadow as her gaze zeroed in on the blood seeping into the wadded-up paper towel from the cuts on his palm and fingers. Her nostrils flared. "You're hurt."

He shook his head. "I broke a glass; it's nothing. I'll replace it or work it off—"

"You're bleeding." She took a single step toward him. Hovered, hesitation tugging her back so that she wavered a little. Her eyes stayed fixed on his injured hand as she rubbed her knuckles along her jaw, almost as if it ached. "You need to...to get the glass out."

A negligent shrug. "Haven't had time to find the first-aid kit—"

"I'll get it," she mumbled, spinning on her heel and hurrying down the hall. Jack leaned a hip against the counter and listened to the sound of plastic rattling inside a container and a slamming door. Sally shuffled back into the kitchen and clunked the large, plastic box of first-aid supplies on the counter. Fine tremors shivered through her hands as she opened the box and withdrew tweezers, disinfectant, gauze, and medical tape.

"Sally," he said sharply. Her gaze darted to his face. "I'm serious. Are you all right? You look a little..."

"Under the weather?" One shoulder came up in a half-shrug as set his hand palm up on a paper towel on the counter. "I'm not feeling well today. I'm okay, though. Thanks for getting the sink last week, too. I really appreciate all the work you do around here." She stopped to lean hard against the counter, pressing her fist to her forehead just above the bridge of her nose. Her lashes made dark copper crescents against the freckles on her cheeks in the dim stove light. "Ohhh, boy." She blew out a long, slow breath. "Sorry. I can get this."

"Don't you need better light?" He asked as she picked up the tweezers and carefully plucked a sliver of glass from the fleshy pad of his thumb.

Sally shook her head and snagged another bit of glass from the heel of his palm. "I can see."

A nervous flick of pink tongue poked between her lips at the corner of her mouth. She was breathing through her mouth, he realized. Shallow breaths that seemed to clutch in her throat. Her hands shook when she dropped the glass bits on the paper towel, but they held steady when the tweezers touched his skin.

"You take that medicine you need yet?" Jack asked after several long moments of silence broken only by her breathing. She shook her head and blew a stray lock of frizz out of her face. Her coke-bottle glasses had slid down the bridge of her nose, but she managed to push them back up with her wrist. "Is that why you're not feeling well right now?"

Irritation sighed from between barely parted lips as she narrowed her eyes. They looked odd, washed out in the dimness. The last slice of glass plucked free from his skin with a deft flick of Sally's wrist. A small smile tugged at her mouth.

"Gotcha. You should run that under cold water."

He didn't raise an eyebrow, bu the instructions felt off. Hot water was ideal for disinfecting wounds. Cold water didn't do anything for injuries; its only use was cleaning blood out of clothes.

She'd probably mispoken.

Silver steam drifted up from the gushing stream of hot water when he turned on the faucet. Sally froze in the act of cleaning and putting away the medical tools she'd used on him. A feverish light gleamed in her eyes and she braced her hands against the counter, leaning hard as if her legs might suddenly mutiny and fold beneath her at any moment. Her breath came shallow and quick.

"Sally?"

She bent nearly in half at the waist, pressing her forehead to the cool marble countertop. Her ponytail bobbled and poofed against the back of her neck and wisps of curly auburn hair stuck to her temples, plastered by a sudden sheen of sweat. "It's just...the steam. Makes it hard for me to breathe. I'm okay, I just...I just need some air. Excuse me."

Shoving away from the counter, she wobbled out into the hall. The door slammed against the wall but didn't shut behind her. Only with his serum-enhanced senses did he catch the chirping of bluejays and the muffled thump of Sally's body slumping to the porch.

Jack quickly washed the tiny wounds out; they'd already stopped bleeding and begun to scap over by the time he washed his hands, thanks to the super-soldier serum in his veins. He moved quickly and silently down the hall to the door out of habit; the carelessness of making stray sounds had been drilled out of him by Pierce and his predecessors over more than a decade of training and even more decades of brutal reinforcement. The assassin swore he moved as silent as a shadow, and yet Sally's head was up, eyes on the doorway when he stepped into view through the doorframe.

She'd heard him. Somehow.

"You all right?" Her color looked better; less ash-gray and more warmth and life. Her eyes didn't gleam as sick as they had in the shadows and the breath moved more easily in her chest. She'd yanked out her scrunchy so her curls fell in diaphanous, coppery-bronze waves around her shoulders. "You looked like you were about to faint."

She shook her head. The smell of chocolate and baking sugar tickled his nose. "No. I'm okay. Sorry about that. I just need to take my medicine. I normally do it when I get up but I got distracted, had to pull a nickel out of Lori's nose."

A small laugh escaped him. "Why did she have...?"

"Because she's two," Sally replied, smiling. "And then Jamie needed my help figuring out how to make his cereal-box harmonica work—cheap piece of junk, but he thinks it's amazing—which took me a century and somehow the toothpaste got put up on the high shelf so Will couldn't reach it and he tried to brush his teeth with the cake frosting in the fridge...Mom stuff," she concluded, shaking her head again. "Ay yai yai. Mixed with work because the show must go on. I was about to deal with it when Jamie reminded me that I needed to ask you a question and I knew I'd forget—I've been forgetting all week—so I figured I'd talk to you first and then take my meds. Bad idea."

He leaned against the doorframe, forcing some of the tension out of his body. She was okay, and the sooner he dealt with whatever she wanted, the faster he could get off the front porch and back into the guest house—and out of sight of the main road, just visible beyond the bakery.

But the idea Sally had a question for him prickled along the back of his neck, an uneasy knowledge. Even her most innocuous questions tended to be problematic.

"What did you need?"

She propped her arms on her updrawn knees and leaned against the porch railing. "We were planning on going on a picnic tomorrow. Not really a picnic because it's just at the grassy lot over there," she brushed long, careless fingers in the direction of the empty, grassy space where the kids liked to play Frisbee with the dogs.

At the moment, Will romped with their clumsy Golden Retriever, Dug, and Chance, the white and brown bulldog. Every few minutes he yelled, "Dug, squirrel!" And the big yellow dog would bound off across the lot after nothing. Becky sat underneath the single, skinny willow tree, plucking leaves off one of the vines and placing them carefully in a pile next to a white puddle of something Jack knew was probably Starbright, their cat. Jamie was most likely inside keeping an eye on Lori.

"So it's more like a cheap, life-hack picnic," Sally continued. "But we sometimes have lunch out there when the weather's good, now that it's getting warm enough. Jamie thought we should invite you. I wasn't sure you'd be okay with it, I know you like your privacy. And you're in no way obligated to come. I can explain it to the kids. But...well, honestly? It's depressing, imagining you eating out here all alone like an ugly old hermit, talking to the lamp."

His lips twitched. "I promise I don't talk to the lamp."

"Or your rifle," she said with a quirked brow and a small smile. "Yeah," she added when his eyebrows shot up. "I know you have a rifle in there. I can smell the gunpowder."

"You know I carry a handgun."

"Different powder. Synthetic, high-quality, finely ground—I'm assuming ground by hand for extra kick. Smells like Pyrodex RS. That's used for rifles and shotguns. Grinding it ultra-fine, usually used to give extra mileage to a hunting rifle. Since, you know, military-issue sniper rifles are illegal for civilians to own."

Tension whipped across the Winter Soldier's shoulders and ice spilled like cold blood down his spine. He stared at the woman lounging on the porch in front of him, all laziness and relaxation now that her little pseudo-fainting spell had passed. Her gaze never wavered from his as frenetic energy crackled in his veins and the hair prickled at the nape of his neck.

_Enemy_, his training screamed. _Danger_. Too much, she knew too much. How did she know these things? How did a twenty-something baker, a widowed mom of three who spent all her time frosting cupcakes and baking pies, know about gunpowder?

He didn't run his fingers through his hair because that would show he was nervous, uncertain, and uncertainty was punished. Phantom electricity bit into the flesh over his ribs and he had to clench his jaw and fix his gaze a thousand yards away, emptying his face of any emotion. He could still taste the bitterness of plastic in his mouth as the shock jolted through his blood, snapping his teeth together, locking his muscles in taut agony.

"Why do you do that?" He managed to bite out from between gritted teeth. Sally's brows twisted together and she shook her head, baffled. "Why do you _say_ things like that? You give everything _away_—"

"Why would I hide it from you?" The soft, puzzled question pierced the haze of foundless resentment and worry-mixed-with-rage sizzling under his skin. He stared at her. "Why does it bother you that I trust you?"

Was that what it was? A sign of her trust? Not her way of needling him that she knew things about him he didn't want her to know, but letting him know things about her that were secret, special...The difference, the assassin realized, between flashing a glimpse of a weapon to let an enemy know you were armed and and dangerous, and giving your new partner your clutch piece.

He let himself rub the back of his neck. "I didn't..."

"Think about it like that," she finished. He sighed. "It's okay. When your brain's been working a certain way for a long time, it takes awhile to rewire it. Trust me, I know. After getting away from Westenra, Dani, and them...if it hadn't been for Dex and King and their friends, I'd still be messed up. But I trust my powers, and they say I can trust you." She shrugged. "So...invitation's on the table. You wanna come eat with us tomorrow? And can you help me off the ground? I'm stuck."

Without thinking he offered his vibranium hand, sheathed in its customary black glove. A thin line of silvery metal peeked between the bottom of the glove and the hem of his jacket sleeve. He hesitated, briefly considered pulling it back. Decided it would draw more attention to the thing than he wanted. So he just pulled her slowly to her feet. Put a hand on her shoulder when she wavered a little.

"You going to be all right?" He asked. She nodded. Eyes the color of aged honey flicked to his face before dropping to settle at his jaw. Sally's expression softened. A quiet dreaminess filled her gaze. "Sally?"

She didn't say anything. Only stepped closer, a single shuffle closing the handful of inches between them. The scent of her, sunlight and sugar, whispered through the air between them. Slowly, as if in a dream, one hand drifted up and the very tips of her fingers alighted as soft as butterfly wings on the edge of his jaw. A spark jumped and snarled across his skin. Heat radiated out from her touch, thawing some of the ice that always chilled his veins. Nothing cruel about this. Nothing dangerous, even though every instinct clamored at him. HYDRA thinking, HYDRA lies. Sally wouldn't hurt him.

But why was she touching him like this? The blood pulsed in her fingertips, he could feel the steady drum of her heartbeat through the two small pinpoints of heat searing his skin. Why was her heart pounding? His own seemed almost unnaturally slow, the rhythmic percussion eerily similar to that moment of odd stillness when he stared down a sniper scope just before he squeezed the trigger.

Her skin was so warm. Almost feverish. He didn't remember her feeling this hot that time they'd slow-danced in the bakery to Ella Fitzgerald. A mistake, one he'd shoved far off into the furthest reaches of his mind because it did no one any good to think about the way her head had drifted down to his shoulder and his jaw had settled against her temple, the warmth of her breath on his neck and the weight of her hand in his.

Why was he thinking about this? Why was she doing this?

A shadow shifted in Sally's eyes and her gaze sharpened. A strange wanting glinted in the depths of her eyes. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip as she came just a touch closer. Too close. The air hummed between them. Instinct roared for him to back up, reach for a weapon. Someone wanting things from him was dangerous. Potentially deadly. But the scents of baking and simplicity kept him rooted in place.

Her breath shushed softly against his chin. Wisps of her hair, tugged by the wind, caught in the rough stubble on his face. The aroma of vanilla and warm chocolate surrounded him.

He didn't know where the insanity behind the words came from—they filled his mind, crawled up his throat, tripped off his tongue—but some half-crazy impulse choked him into mumbling, "I can go with you tomorrow. Sure."

Sally jerked back from him like he'd jabbed her with a needle. Her eyes widened, darting between his face and his jaw and back again. She ran a hand through her hair and took three jerky steps backward.

"You have a little bit of..." She gestured spastically at his face. "In your...scruff."

Surprised, he smoothed a hand over his cheeks and chin. The stubble he used as a partial disguise scraped against his palm. A single bit of glass hit the shoulder of his jacket with a soft _thp!_ noise. He swiped at it and it fell to the porch. When he looked up from where it had fallen, Sally was already halfway down the porch steps. She hurried toward the bakery on unsteady legs, mumbling a hasty goodbye as she walked away.

Jack watched Sally leave, ignoring the prickle of unease because he was standing out in the open. He didn't go back inside until the bakery door jingled shut after her. He'd thought...well, he'd thought she was about to kiss him. Which would've been a mistake of phenomenal proportions. Sally getting that attached to him put them both at risk. He couldn't allow it. He couldn't allow any sort of softness or attachment to develop between them.

Which begged the question why he'd agreed to go on this picnic in the first place. But he couldn't back out. She'd probably already told the kids. If he canceled, they'd be all over him, wanting to know why. In the last three weeks, he'd remembered how the four of them managed to work in tandem to get their way.

He was stuck—for now. But this would be the last time. Then he'd go back to being Sally's handyman and solitary boarder. He'd keep them at a distance, like he'd always planned to. Like he should've been doing this whole time. He'd find Danica—whoever she was—and her associates, eliminate them, and make sure Sally and the kids were safe. Then he was gone again. Lost in the wind. A ghost.

She'd been about to kiss him. Only at the last second had she pulled back, looking almost...ashamed. Why?

Unfortunately he couldn't ask. Asking would acknowledge what had happened between them just now, and he couldn't afford to do that. Better to pretend nothing had happened. Keep things as they were—just friendly.

But he could still feel the soft warmth of her fingertips against the line of his jaw.

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_The present..._

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Sally Gardner hunched her shoulders at the needles driving deep into her eyes even through the heavily-tinted sunshades. Jack had picked the perfect pair. They couldn't control the symptoms of her disease completely, but he knew what she needed. He knew her so well...

But it had taken months of second-guessing, misinterpretation. Like that day on the porch when she'd invited him to a picnic with her and the kids. Later he'd confessed he thought she'd been about to try and kiss him. It had taken several weeks before she'd admitted what she'd really wanted to do in that moment, or what she'd done afterward when he'd snapped her out of whatever half-trance she'd fallen into looking at him.

Jack had watched her walk back into the bakery and assumed she'd gone about her usual business after dosing herself with her medicine. He hadn't learned until later how her hands had shook so badly when she'd filled the syringe she'd shattered the glass tubing twice, wasting two precious doses, or how she'd had to unscrew the bottle of ammonia cleaner from under the bathroom sink and take several long, burning whiffs to clear her head and maintain enough self-control to keep herself in the main house upstairs in her room where it was safest. Only after that and splashing her face with water so cold it almost burned had she been able to slip the needle into the vein at the bend of her arm and inject the translucent blue fluid into her blood.

After that, she should've backed off. Should've rescinded the invitation. Jack probably hadn't wanted to accept it, anyway. For all she knew, she could've been influencing him with her stronger powers since she'd been unmedicated at the time. But she hadn't. Being around him, seeing him look at her without judgment or fear or contempt...it had made her feel a little less lonely.

And she'd actually managed to get him to loosen up during the picnic, too, even with the setbacks...

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_7 1/2 months ago..._

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You didn't need serum-enhanced senses to pick up the thunderous drum of the rain attempting to beat the roof into submission. The Winter Soldier studied the display on his laptop, ignoring the solitary drip-drip of a leak just in front of the back door; a lonely, scuffed pot caught each drip as it plummeted from the ceiling. He'd have to fix that at some point. In the meantime, looked like the picnic was canceled. Even Sally's hellions wouldn't want to eat in the pouring rain. Which gave the assassin the chance for further research into Luke Westenra. This time he was exploring a new avenue—Hannibal King.

The guy had a rap sheet a mile long and not one but _two_ death certificates—one buried under miles of red tape in Scotland Yard's oldest computer files, dating almost fiften years ago, and another in the New York City Coroner's database dating five years ago—as well as a private investigator's license. Counted among his known associates were names he vaguely recognized—Frank Drake, Stephen Strange, Eric Brooks, and (the only big shocker on the list) a former CIA agent, Tatjana Stiles.

Eric Brooks and Frank Drake were names he'd heard Sally drop before, but Stephen Strange had been on the Insight-Helicarrier's hitlist. He also served as a guest lecturer at Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters, where Sally had attended high school. Tatjana Stiles had been dead for nearly six years. And the name Stephen Strange linked up in New York to three guys and a young woman, all in their early twenties: Daniel Rand, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Peter Parker.

_Peter Parker_. That had been the name of the nosy kid with the camera Sally had recently hired the last time Jack was here, the kid behind the counter. The one Jamie and Will liked to play with. Sally had said he'd taken off, gone back to New York for school. New York, the residence of Stephen Strange, Daniel Rand, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones. Jessica Jones had been on the Helicarrier's hitlist, as well, but the assassin had never been able to determine why. A sophomore in college, she had some background in researching gamma rays and the byproducts of gamma energy fusion. Interestingly enough, Peter Parker was her lab partner in Advanced Bio-Chem IV, and Daniel Rand was a member of her yoga class. All three of them appeared in a number of social media photos near 177A Bleecker Street, the address listed for Stephen Strange, MD and PhD.

_How do you know Strange, Sally?_ The Winter Soldier wondered silently, clicking through various articles about the doctor. A former neurosurgeon who no longer practiced medicine after a car accident, Jack had never understood just why he was on HYDRA's list. The same with Jessica Jones. She'd barely bumped twenty when HYDRA had made their move to take control with the three target-locking Helicarriers. _Did you know Peter? Is that why you hired him?_

The doorbell chimed, breaking his concentration. His vibranium hand checked to make sure his Bowie knife was still strapped to his thigh while his other hand went to the pistol on the kitchen table next to him. Doubtful a HYDRA grunt or SHIELD moron would ring the doorbell, but better safe than sorry. Probably just some incredibly intrepid, possibly psychotic Girl Scout on the hunt for a hot score of pity-sales; who wouldn't feel sorry for a little girl standing drenched in sheeting rain?

He angled the small mirror he'd set up at the door to look through the peephole—a safety precaution in order to avoid a shotgun blast through the door and his torso.

Sally stood in a slouchy sweater, damp speckles sprinkled across her shoulders. She held a box of frosted plastic under one arm and a gallon-thermos in one hand. Jamie, Becky, Will, and Lori all ambled around on the porch, soaked with rain. The soaking didn't really matter, though, since they all wore swimsuits. Rivulets of water dripped over Becky and Jamie's arms and shoulders from their hair. Tucking the mirror aside where it wouldn't be obvious and resheathing/reholstering his knife and gun, he opened the door and raised an eyebrow at Sally.

"You do know it is _pouring_ rain right now?" He asked as the kids scampered over to crowd close to the door. "What are you doing out here?"

"Well," Sally said, hefting the box, "it's raining like Armageddon out here, so obviously there's no picnic on the grass. So we thought we'd bring the picnic to you and have it inside. If you don't mind." She shot a look at her kids. Jerking her chin at them, she mouthed, _They made me do it. Help me._ Jack's mouth twitched. Aloud she added, "Didn't want to waste the food."

At that moment his stomach rumbled ever so softly. Quiet enough most people wouldn't have been able to hear it, but Sally's gaze sharpened and she shot him an expectant look. Indicated the box in her arms with a quick glance.

"And they're in swimsuits because...?"

"In case you haven't noticed," she said with a smile, "it's pouring out. And the secret tunnel connecting the guest house and the bakery is for emergencies only."

"Uh-huh." Was she joking about a secret tunnel? He'd found nothing during his original search of the premises. "And you managed to stay dry how?"

She grinned, flashing very white teeth. "I'm epic. Duh. Now you want this box of gloriousness or not?"

"I'll take the box," he said.

Her eyebrows quirked. "Of gloriousness?"

"Do I really have to say that?" He asked. Her smile didn't falter. "I'll take the box...of gloriousness."

"Awesome! See, that wasn't as painful as you thought it would be. Alright, my minions," she added in a high-pitched, cackly voice. A nudge of one hip sent the three taller kids scurrying into the guest house. Jamie clutched a large, rectangular object wrapped in a black trashbag. "Inside, out of the rain, I'm melting here. Melting, melting, oh what a world, what a world.

"Beep-beep, Lolo," she said, and Lori scuttled inside after her siblings. The toddler stopped right beside Jack's boot and stared up at him. Her tiny hands hooked into the lowest pocket of his black cargo pants.

Jack shut the door after them. "What is she doing?"

Saly snorted. "Trying to guilt-trip you. Lolo, use your words. Tell Jack what you want."

Lori gave a little bounce and smiled. "Up!"

"Up, what?" Sally asked, seemingly oblivious to the dread coiling in Jack's stomach at the thought of what _up_ could possibly mean. The only option he could think of was...

Lori wrapped her chubby arms around his knee, propped her chin on his leg, and beamed, showing her little, white teeth. The last few surviving raindrops pit-patted off her thick, black braids to splat Jack's combat boots. "Up, peas. Jack! Up, peas!"

He tried to keep the slight tinge of panic out of his face when he looked at Sally for guidance. "What does she want?"

For the first time, Sally's soft laugh reminded him of something vaguely sinister, though he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

Maybe Satan.

"For you to pick her up," Sally said.

"Why? She can walk."

Lori's grip on his leg constricted until it felt like the joint was being crushed by a hungry python. She bumped her cheek against his leg and sighed. "Jack-Jack." Somehow she managed to infuse the nickname with the closest thing he'd ever heard to unconditional love mixed with utter contentment.

A few child-inappropriate phrases drifted through his mind as he leaned down and lifted the toddler up. She squealed and waved her arms, shooting nerves down his spine like shards of ice. He adjusted his grip on the bundle of squirming, wet two-year-old. Lori immediately twined her arms around his neck and dropped her sopping head to his shoulder.

"Jack-Jack."

Uh-huh. "Just curious, do your minions have towels?"

"Yeah, in my backpack." She hefted her shoulders and he realized she carried a canvas pack the same hunter green as her sweater. "Got a blanket, too. You wanna set up in the living room? The food's still hot thanks to my insulated packaging and technical genius, by the way."

It took only a few minutes for the thick patchwork quilt to be laid on the living room floor, for the kids to get wrapped in their towels and sit down with paper plates and plastic cups of raspberry lemonade, and for Sally to unwrap the thing Jamie had been carrying and set it against the wall—a boom box.

"In case we want music or something," Sally explained. She popped the lid off the large plastic box. "You know, if the sound of the heavens trying to drown us mere mortals eventually gets boring. Now, cupcake time!"

He stared at the box she'd opened. A tray of cupcakes rested near the top, their tops frosted in different colors.

"Is that entire box full of cupcakes?"

"I have various types of both sweet and savory cupcakes. Basically, dessert cupcakes and actual 'you could eat this for dinner' cupcakes."

"Mommy made othean-caketh!" Will said, scooting closer to the box.

"Ooh," Becky mumbled. "Little shrimps."

Sally—in the middle of lifting out a cupcake tray from what Jack realized was the layered display case she called "the pastry stack-rack"—shot her four-year-old what the assassin could only describe as a Mom-look and the kid scootched back to his spot.

"Ocean cakes?" Jack echoed.

Sally shoved a cupcake at him. The top sported white frosting—vanilla?—flecked with pink stuff on top of what he realized was a cupcake-shaped crabcake. A de-shelled shrimp tail stuck out of the frosting. "Savory cupcake. Crab cake breaded in sourdough, crab salad 'frosting,' baked salmon filling, garnished with a lemon-juiced jumbo shrimp. Eat it. And congratulations on graduating from Will's Lisp One-oh-One."

As weird as the idea of shrimp and crab in a cupcake was...what she'd said sounded pretty good. Hesitantly, he took a bite.

The look on his face at the taste of the so-called "cupcake" made Sally's grin widen, which in turn made him smile around the mouthful of crabcake. "Ha. Gotcha. I knew I'd hook you. Okay, okay, time to plate. Will, do not try to stick the shrimp up your nose. That's gross. Jamie, do not pretend to swordfight with your sister using a shrimp. If you wanna fence, use a plastic fork. No stabbing. Becky, here's the ones I made just for you, with the Miracle Whip.

"She hates mayonaise," Sally added without looking up. She shuffled paper plates, plasticware, and cupcakes around with the finesse of a general commanding an army. She even managed to catch the glob of "frosting" Will had balanced on the tip of his tongue that took an unexpected plunge toward the quilt. "And Lori, here's yours with no frosting. She doesn't like the way it feels," Sally said. "Look."

Sure enough, the toddler eyed Will's crabcake before leaning over and sticking her finger in the crab salad frosting as if checking the consistency. Her little face screwed up in an expression of abject disgust and she wiped the frosting on her brother's arm. "Yucky!"

"Hey, don't poke my cuppycake!"

Lori stuck her tongue out. Sally cleared her throat and the toddler stuck her lip out instead. "Sowwy." Will patted her on the head, then licked the smear of frosting off his arm.

The Winter Soldier leaned back against the threadbare living room couch as Sally set a plate for him, too, with one of each kind of the savory cupcake. He'd never even heard of savory cupcakes before. Well, if the rest of them were as good as the one he'd just bitten into, he figured there were worse ways to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon.

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_**Author's Note:**__ so savory cupcakes are actually a thing. Google them and drool over the pictures. They look pretty delicious. I'm a huge fan of_ Cupcake Wars, _that's how I know about them. Maybe even try making your own! :)_


	11. A Dream Deferred

_**Author's Note:**__ I realize it's been for-fracking-ever, but I'm back now, I swear. Barring illness or accident (knock on wood), I'm back to updating on a regular schedule. I'm sorry for the delay, and thank you guys for being so patient. Huggles for you all! Let me know what you think of the chapter._

_**Last Time on Once in the Winter's Tide:**__Bucky left Sally's place in the past-time story and was gone for 2 months, but then got noticed by HYDRA when he tried to contact Steve on a disposable cell phone, and he got shot. So he ended up going to hide out at Sally's because it was close and he had nowhere else to go, and she took care of him, but a guy from her past showed up and tried to shoot her and Bucky and Sally shot him. Now Bucky is trying to figure out when he's going to leave again because he can't stay at Sally's but he wants to stay at Sally's and he's slowly falling into a routine and feeling like he belongs there, but he's fighting the feeling because he's like, "I can't have a normal life." And in the present, Sally and Bucky are separately heading for Avengers Tower (Bucky actually just got there) to meet up with Steve, Rhodie, Pepper, Natasha, and Tony in order to team up and rescue Jamie, who's very sick and being held by HYDRA agents._

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**Chapter Eleven**

**A Dream Deferred**

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_5 months earlier..._

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And so things like fixing busted pipes and cupcake picnics on Sundays and dinner in the bakery most nights out of the week became routine. Somehow his life acquired a schedule, something he'd always sworn he would avoid. Something dangerous to have. It gave his enemies an easier time of targeting him. But somehow he couldn't stay away from the bakery come seven o'clock, when Sally would have dinner on the counter waiting for him. Or force himself to turn Sally away every time she and the kids showed up on his porch on Sunday afternoons, rain or shine.

He should have. He knew he should have. But he couldn't.

So now it was the first week of November and the assassin propped his vibranium arm on one updrawn knee and popped the last of the lasagna cupcake (who'd ever heard of a lasagna cupcake?) in his mouth. The kids were busy dancing around his living room to whatever tweenybopper music pumped out of the boom box speakers.

_"Basically what we're gonna do is dance;_  
_Basically what we're gonna do is dance;_  
_Basically what we're gonna do is dance;_  
_It will come easily when you hear the beat, oh!"_

Sally had settled against the couch next to him, her feet tucked under her, head dropped back onto the cushion with her eyes closed in dreamy contentment. Even the cybernetic nerve endings in his metal arm picked up the warmth of her body.

"What is this stuff?" He asked.

"'Sneaker Night,'" she said. "Vanessa Hudgens. The kids like it, and I don't mind it. I prefer cute club music over the hardcore stuff nowadays." She opened her eyes. Glanced at him sidelong, still smiling. "Not your cup of tea, I take it." He shook his head with a smile. "You just need to loosen up a little bit, I think. Big Band music is not the only music that exists."

He shrugged. "You can't dance to this."

Her grin should've warned him, but he'd grown a bit complacent about Sally in the last couple months. So as the final line of the song—"Put your sneakers on...gonna dance all night long..."—faded away, the Cake Boss of Whistle-Stop called, "Hey, who wants to dance to some Taylor Swift?"

Jack had no idea who Taylor Swift was or what kind of music he made, but whatever it was, the kids started jumping up and down and screeching like howler monkeys. Sally nudged him before popping to her feet. She thrust her hand out at him. He eyed it as if it was an animal ready to snap at his fingers with saliva-dripping fangs.

"Oh, come on," she said. "Just get up. Lazy."

_Lazy?_ Okay, he wasn't letting that stand. He got to his feet _without_ taking her hand and eyed her, crossing his arms over his chest. Sally grinned as a steady beat drummed from the boom box's speakers.

"Dance with me."

"Yeah, Jack!" Jamie chimed in from over by the box. "Dance with Mommy!" Will and Lori babbled agreement. Becky smiled.

"To this?" Jack demanded, though he focused on Sally. "How do you dance to this?"

Sally rolled her eyes. "Give me your hand, you bum." He let her take his hand and she bounce-hopped up to him as the singer finally piped up. Apparently Taylor Swift was a girl. Sally sang along, punctuating the lyrics with instructions as she moved. "_I stay out too late,_ and see, I'm right in, _got nothin' in my brain_, and I bounce out. If you'd match me instead of being a block of wood, we could be dancing right now. Will you trust me?"

Well...why not? He bit back a sigh. It would make the kids happy—and he'd stop feeling like he was kicking a puppy while a quartet of other puppies watched—so why not? And Bucky Barnes had liked to dance. He wasn't him, not anymore, but the ghost of the man he'd been before the war was still there. Why not let that ghost have some fun once in a while?

"All right," he mumbled. "Start the song over."

"Awesome," Sally said, beaming. Jamie pressed the button and the percussion began again. "All right, here we go. _I stay out too late,_ bounce in close. _Got nothin' in my brain_, and jive out. _At least that's what people say, mmmm, mmmm._ Dance in place! Oh, for the love of pastries, move your hips. Bounce. Jive. Come on! Do what Jamie's doing."

That was _not_ happening. The kid was bopping all over the place. Although he seemed to be having fun. And he _was_ sort of moving to the beat. Jack narrowed his eyes, then listened to the rhythm of the song. He watched Jamie, who sort of nodded his head in time with the beat. The assassin mimicked him, ignoring Sally's delighted smile. The kid was doing this thing with his shoulders, too. Jack tried it. It actually felt pretty easy. Natural. In rhythm. Sally nodded.

"See, you're getting it. Okay, do that, but try moving side to side. You know, in rhythm. Like this. Yeah, yeah, like that! Awesome."

It was impossible to feel like an idiot when she was grinning at him like he'd just made her day. She took his hand again and said, "Okay, now keep doing this, but move how I say at the same time. Think you can do it?"

The Winter Soldier was a master assassin, highly proficient in various styles of martial arts. He'd run gauntlets requiring elite skills, where even the tiniest mistake meant torture or possibly—probably—death. He could drive, shoot, and calculate battle tactics all at the same time. This was easy.

"_But I keep cruising,_ okay, spin me into you like it's the forties!_ Can't stop, won't stop grooving!_ And out, _it's like I've got this music, in my mind,_ in! _Saying it's going to be all right!_ And out! Freestyle! _'Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play! And the haters gonnna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate!_ Lindy Hop!"

Jack's mouth nearly fell open. An odd warmth fizzed softly in the pit of his stomach. It felt almost like...happiness.

"How do you know the Lindy Hop?" How did she know _he_ knew the Lindy Hop? Or rather, that Bucky Barnes had known it once upon a time. Muscle memory, long locked away beneath ice and blood and shadows, surged to the surface and flooded his body.

Sally grinned. "I'm a master of many talents! _Heartbreakers gonna break, break, break, break, break! And the-_"

_"Bakerth gonna bake, bake, bake, bake, bake!"_ Will sang at the top of his lungs. Sally and Jack both winced, but neither could wipe the smiles off their faces. _"Baby, jutht gonna eat cake, cake, cake, cake, cake! Tho thake it off, thake it off!"_

"That doesn't even make sense!" Jamie protested.

"Can't hear you," Will replied, shaking his butt and flapping his arms like a chicken. "I'm being awethome!"

And for a moment Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, forgot everything but the little boy doing a chicken dance and his mother, laughing so hard she had to hang onto him for support. And he smiled.

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_The present..._

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The Winter Soldier moved through an underground parking garage where he'd left an SUV. HYDRA would expect him to leave a getaway car and several survival packs in Virginia or maybe DC. No one would think to check the garages Stark Industries or the Avengers' Tower, with it's state-of-the-art security. But he'd taken a risk before setting out for the boreal wilderness, and it had paid off. Now he'd just come back from Canada, trying to break into that God-forsaken HYDRA base to get Jamie, and he'd finally made it to New York, and Steve Rogers, and his own last hope of getting any kind of help.

He shouldn't have forgotten, the assassin thought. How could he have been so stupid? There was a time-bomb just tick-tick-ticking away in his head. The right words from an undercover HYDRA agent could shatter his new world in seconds. Even without those words seething in his skull, waiting to trigger the merciless killing machine again, getting close to Sally had been a mistake. Maybe it was safe enough for her,—she could hold her own against him if she pushed herself beyond what was safe for her and her family and the rest of the world, if she refused to take the medication that allowed her to live her life—but not for those kids.

He had to get Jamie back.

The Winter Soldier paused just before turning the corner. His nostrils flared and the hair at the nape of his neck prickled with sudden static. This wasn't just HYDRA's experiments now. They'd only heightened what he'd developed in Germany during the war. That sense of predators waiting to make him prey. The sense of predators waiting to become _his_ unwitting prey. Apparently someone _had_ considered the possibility that he'd stash things at Avengers' Tower. Well, then...

Without a sound, he unsheathed the knife at his hip. He'd nearly gutted Steve Rogers with this knife once. Back in DC. That fight on the bridge. But Steve had been strong enough, fast enough to match HYDRA's top assassin. Their own super soldier.

These HYDRA agents waiting to ambush him wouldn't stand a chance.

He drew a breath. Ignored the little stabbing sensation in his chest when he didn't smell warm chocolate and sugar and baking things. After this...he couldn't go back to the bakery. Back to Whistle-Stop. Whoever had taken Jamie—Strucker? Bakshi? Rumlow?—had shown him that.

Closing his eyes once, for a split-second eternity, he remembered the last time he'd walked into a fight with something to lose. He'd been Bucky Barnes, then. Seventy years ago, almost. That morning on the train, hurtling through the mountains of the Kresy in Poland. The only thing he'd let himself think about was protecting Captain America. Protecting Steve Rogers. His oldest friend.

The Winter Soldier knew who he was protecting now. He just wished Sally was here to help. It would hurt him more if he was the one getting shot; in the state she was in, she'd probably just brush the bullets off and keep on trucking.

He let the breath go.

Vapor-lights flashed on steel as he lunged forward and slashed up with the knife. The flat side of the blade sliced toward the enemy. At the last minute, eyes zeroing in on the tentacled insignia of HYDRA, the Winter Soldier twisted and the blade cut a silver streak across his target's throat. Blood arced scarlet.

Black was very good for hiding bloodstains.

It took less than a breath to take out the first HYDRA agent. As his body fell, the others surged into violent motion. The Winter Soldier ignored the crackle of electromagnetic energy buzzing and popping in his vibranium arm as he blocked a hastily-fired gunshot and broke the shooter's wrist with a hollow _snap!_ He ducked, kicked out. A man's kneecap shattered. Another target fell, screaming. The assassin cut his throat and the scream died in a red gurgle. Another agent collapsed when the Winter Soldier drove his knife into the enemy's chest, under the breastbone and into the pericardium; it took him seconds to bleed to death. In those agonizing seconds, the remaining pair of HYDRA agents went down.

Wiping his knife on his cargo pants, the assassin slid it back into the sheath. He'd have to clean it—_thoroughly_—when he met up with Sally in New York. Getting into the SUV they'd tried to put an EMP-lock on was almost easier than crossing out HYDRA agents to. Like that would keep him out. Sliding behind the wheel, he set a pistol on the passenger seat and covered it with the black backpack that had been hidden on the floor. Easy access.

For a second he considered trying to call Sally. Decided against it. By now she'd probably found the perfect driving position. He didn't want to screw with that. It would be hard enough for her to get in the parking garage anyway.

The assassin slid out of the car and headed for the elevator. He left the bodies where they'd fallen. Clean-up was for people like SHIELD or Iron Man. He didn't need to worry about his messes when the government was so considerate as to clean them up for him. He was a ghost.

A ghost bearing an invisible ball-and-chain in the shape of four kids and their mom. When he and Captain Rogers made it to the HYDRA base, when they got in, they'd have to make sure no one in HYDRA ever considered it worthwhile to come after the Gardners again. Otherwise they'd never be safe.

She'd been able to keep her family safe until he arrived, Jack thought as he calmly and carefully shot out the security cameras in the elevator. Glass tinkled against the toes of his combat boots. It was all right to be Jack now. No one followed him—yet—and the adrenaline in his blood had begun to ebb. So he could be Jack for a minute, and regret that he'd destroyed the safety Sally's family had enjoyed despite her secrets.

Of course they'd been safe. Sally had seen to that...

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_4 months earlier..._

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"I cannot believe it is this hot in December," Jack growled as he hefted a plastic cooler the color of moldy mustard onto his shoulder. Becky shuffled beside him, eyes on the rocky sand and peeping hermit crabs. Little Will and Jamie ran ahead, whooping; insulted seagulls shrieked and flapped off as the boys raced toward the beach...followed by Dug, Somewhere, and Pupcake, their very rambunctious dogs. "It's got to be at least eighty degrees out here. Are you really going swimming?"

Sally shifted Lori in her arms. "Try ninety. Oof!" She jerked her head back before Lori could whack her in the face again with the plastic floaties on the toddler's arms. "Careful, Lolo. That hurts Mommy. Anyway, it's a birthday gift from one of my favorite teachers. I wanted to go swimming, so I needed a warm ocean."

He eyed her. "A birthday present from your favorite teacher."

Sometimes it was so easy to forget she was a mutant; hunches didn't really qualify as a superpower. Easier still, with how isolated she stayed in her bakery at the edges of her little town. But apparently giving her a summer day in the middle of winter in Virginia was no big deal at all.

"Does Becky swim?"

"Ask her," Sally said a little sharply. "She can talk."

He winced. He still didn't think to go out of his way to talk to the kids. Better for everyone if he didn't. But Jamie, Will, and Lori usually sought him out on their own. Becky never would. Walking next to him now, her mom on his other side and almost completely out of the little girl's sight, was the Becky-version of grabbing onto his legs and begging him to carry her around. Jack cleared his throat.

"You can swim, Becky?

She lifted her gaze from the ground to the horizon, chin tilted slight in his direction—her way of acknowledging him. She gave a half-shrug and a small smile played around her mouth. After a moment she nodded dreamily.

"You like swimming?"

Her smile got a little bigger and she nodded again.

At that point they'd reached the smoother, less rocky part of the beach. Empty of anyone enjoying the unseasonably warm weather, the beach swept out around them in a blanket of sand, scuttling hermit crabs, and crashing waves. Jack turned his attention to Sally as she set Lori down. The toddler immediately pounced on a hole where a hermit crab poked its tiny pinchers out. The crab, petrified of the toddler's shadow, dashed back to its hole. Lori giggled and pounced on another crab.

"How did you teach her how to swim?" He asked as Becky shuffled toward the water. The boys were already splashing like mad, yelling and laughing and trying to get the dogs to catch handfuls of ocean the kids flung at them. "Didn't she get upset?"

"At first," Sally replied, setting up the Disney blanket to protect them from the sand. She flopped onto it and kicked off her sandals. He tried to ignore the way the sunlight made the gold-glitter polish on her toes sparkle. "Jamie was a big help; a lot of the time, whatever he's doing, Becky wants to do, even if it's scary. And we had a great instructor come to visit for the summer from my old college. Professor Frost. She really helped Becky become more comfortable with being in the water."

Sally dropped back onto the blanket, folding her arms behind her head. She smiled at the sky. "I have it pretty easy, honestly. Not as easy as this one friend of mine—she's an empath and can read memories, so she's got this way of communicating with the baby she just had last year; cuts down on so much fussing—but I've got resources a lot of non-mutants don't have. We can't afford to be divided, the way so-called 'normal' people treat us."

Wondering what made him ask, knowing he skated too close to personal things, the Winter Soldier asked softly, "Do you miss it? Being a mutant?"

"I still _am_ a mutant. My powers are just muted. They're still there. It's..." She closed her eyes against the wisps of cloud and the sun blazing against her skin. Let out a long, slow sigh. "I can feel the world pressing in on my mind, just like before I...got sick. Waiting to tell me things, show me things. It's just that now the medicine mutes it. Instead of a clear conversation, all I get is mumbling. Instead of a clear picture, I get snow and static. But sometimes I'll make out a handful of words or catch a glimpse of a fuzzy image and realize what I'm listening to and looking at. But yes," she added wistfully, "I miss being clairvoyant. Do you miss being whatever you used to be?"

Tension ratcheted through his body. Somehow he kept his gaze locked on the rolling waves, at Becky wading through the surf, the boys and the dogs splashing, Lori smacking a tide pool with one little hand.

"What I used to be?"

"Before the people you're running from hurt you."

"Is that another hunch?" He couldn't hide the bitterness twining beneath the words like thorns. Sally sat up. Jack felt her eyes on him, silent and heavy as a touch. She didn't speak, and the weight of her gaze made the back of his neck itch. He finally risked glancing at her. She sat with her arms draped around her knees. "What?"

He realized in that moment that he'd gone soft. He'd learned under HYDRA how to withstand torture. How to keep silent except under the most dire—usually near-fatal—circumstances. But all she had to do was stare at him with those eyes the color of honey. Maybe hunches weren't her only power. Maybe there was something else. Hypnosis? Mental manipulation? There was a girl working for HYDRA, one of the Enhanced, who could manipulate people's minds at a certain level.

But Sally wouldn't. HYDRA would. Pierce would have. That traitor _had_ used mind control of sorts on the Winter Soldier to ensure his compliance. Bucky could still remember the crackle of electricity burning at his temples, agony flaring through his skull, the crushing grip of the electricity coursing through him until every muscle locked and tightened, threatening to snap...

Something touched his wrist, a brush of silky synthetic fabric. It sent a pulse of panicked adrenaline pumping through his veins. Copper blood flooded his mouth when his teeth snapped together and sank into his cheek. His hand spasmed toward the knife at his hip, but there was no knife. His skin tingled, desperate for the weight of guns that had mysteriously disappeared. He had no weapons except fists and feet and teeth and—

Fingertips alighted on his wrist. The contact burned like noon-forged steel. The assassin jerked his hand away, swinging with his other hand, lunging, shoving his full weight behind the blow. A half-strangled scream tried to beat its way free from behind his clenched teeth. Never again. They couldn't erase him again!

His metal fist connected with flesh. Someone grunted under the impact. The Winter Soldier bared his teeth when he realized a pair of raised fists had blocked his shot. He threw his weight forward, colliding with the HYDRA agent trying to take him. Before he could register the flash of flustered annoyance in honey-gold eyes, a pair of hands grabbed his wrists, a bare foot slammed into his chest—he felt the toes dig into his pectorals right above his sternum—and suddenly he was shot into the air, flipped over, and slammed into the sand.

Sand? Even as the question popped into his head, he twisted off his back onto toes, knees, and hands, crouched and ready to spring. But...there was no sand in Washington DC...There was no sand in any of the places he'd hidden out before coming to...

Whistle-Stop. Sally's Pastry Garden. The beach.

_Sally_.

The Winter Soldier blinked the haze of red fury from his eyes and focused on the woman watching him warily, concern warring with annoyance in her eyes. There was something strange about Sally's eyes now. They were less golden, more yellow. Almost sickly in color. Her breath came in harsh wheezes and her skin looked gray. Her mouth looked strange, though he didn't quite know why. He didn't remember hitting her anywhere except on the back of her fists, though...

He'd hit her. With his metal fist. Had he broken anything? Was she hurt?

"Sally—"

"Are you back?" Her voice was rock-steady. Not a quiver of nerves in it. He swallowed. Nodded. She relaxed and sat back on the slightly mussed Little Mermaid blanket. Rubbed the back of her hand. "You hit like a freight train. Cripes."

"I am _so_ sorry—"

She waved that off. "I'm fine. If I had to, I could take you in a fight. You okay?"

No. No, he wasn't, and he wondered how she possibly could be. How could she just brush this off? Especially with what he knew about Luke Westenra, the guy Sally had been with before she'd met her husband, the guy who'd infected her with...whatever sickness she had now. He was pretty sure it was HIV, but she hadn't confirmed that and he hadn't brought it up. How could she be okay with him hitting her when she'd been abused by a man before?

"Yeah."

A lie. But his whole life was made up of lies, wasn't it? That was what had triggered the full brunt of the flashback—he'd thought of himself, for just a moment, as Bucky Barnes instead of the Winter Soldier. And then his own psyche had reminded him in no uncertain terms that Bucky Barnes was, for all intents and purposes, dead.

Even though, more and more, it felt like whatever he'd become was slowly bleeding back into what he'd been. Even though being out here, in the sun and the bizarrely balmy breeze, seared away the cold always creeping through the Winter Soldier's veins, leaving warmth and the whispers of memory behind...

But how had Sally borne the brunt of a punch from his metal arm? Was it a side-effect of her medicine?

"Sally, how did you—"

"Magic," she said brightly. He gave her a look that spoke volumes. She sighed. "Drop it, please. I don't want to explain it to you, but I will if you push me. I'd rather not, though. Please? Let's go swimming."

He could push. She'd give if he pushed. The assassin and soldier in him demanded he ferret out the answers to how she'd blocked that shot without breaking anything. She'd taken a hit from him before and barely been fazed. How? But Jack, the man he'd slowly begun to morph into while staying in Whistle-Stop—the Winter Soldier's corpse haunted by the ghost of Bucky Barnes' memory—didn't want to see the shadows in Sally's eyes when she answered him. So he let it go.

But he wasn't going swimming. Not a chance. He didn't...do things like that.

"I didn't bring a suit."

Sally just stared at him. "Why the ever loving snick-snack-frick-frack did you _not_ bring a bathing suit to the _beach?_ Ugh. You make me so sad sometimes." She yanked out her scrunchie and ran her fingers through her auburn curls before slanting him a look. "Swim in your jeans."

He couldn't have heard her right. "What?"

"Ditch your shirt and swim in your jeans. No one's going to see you but us."

"Uh...no."

Sally raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"

Why not? There were a thousand reasons: he didn't want her to see where his vibranium arm attached to his shoulder; he didn't want her to see, with those too-sharp eyes of hers, the scars left by HYDRA's experiments and conditioning and the fall from the bridge in the Kresy; he hadn't gone anywhere without a weapon (and how was he supposed to keep his knife on him if he was swimming?) in over sixty years.

She was still watching him. He could practically see the wheels turning in her head. Was this one of her hunches? Would a boulder come crashing out of the sky and brain him if he stayed in this spot? Maybe abducted by aliens? No, aliens could grab him just as easily in the ocean as they could on the beach.

"Who swims in their jeans?" He demanded.

"Lots of guys. King does."

Jack glowered at her. Hannibal King. Sally's friend, the one who'd hit on him—and had also somehow known the Winter Soldier was armed after only a cursory glance. The one with the weird nocturnal habits, whatever he was doing; the assassin couldn't be sure, and he didn't want to push Sally for answers to questions she wanted to pretend he didn't notice enough to have in the first place.

There was something about that guy. Hannibal King...There was more to him than was readily apparent. Same with Sally. But the guy wasn't the type Jack expected to just jump into the sea wearing blue jeans. He was the kind of guy who carried a weapon anywhere. Sort of like the Winter Soldier.

"That joker?" Of course he did. Why not?

She smiled. "Yes. But if you don't want to, then fine. Stay up here. Be a stick in the mud. Grow old and bored and lonely if it makes you happy. I don't mind."

She hopped to her feet and peeled off the thin, cotton t-shirt she wore. Underneath, silver glitter sparkled across a blue and green one-piece. She wiggled out of her shorts and left them with her shirt and sandals in a heap, smoothing out the rumpled ocean-colored skirt trimming the bottom of her swimsuit. The sun made the long, smooth, brown expanse of her legs gleam.

Sally flexed her toes, scrunching them in the sand. "I'll just leave you here on the sand with your compatriots."

"My...compatriots?"

Her smile widened. "All the hermit crabs. Ta-ta!" And she took off at a jog, ponytail bouncing against her back as she waved to her kids and they waved back. Even Becky waved, absently, without really looking dead-on at her mother.

Overhead, gulls called to their mates and swooped low over rocky nests. The crashing ocean washed over the sand, sending crabs scattering away from the tide. Pupcake, Dug, and Somewhere barked and yipped and made it their mission to lick sea-sprayed, salty kids. Sally skidded to a halt next to Lori, kicking up a spray of sand when the water splashed over her legs. She squealed and stamped her feet while Lori squealed and fell on her butt, and Jack...the Winter Soldier...the ghost of Bucky Barnes smiled softly.

This was the kind of life Bucky had wanted after the war. Well, sort of. A little house with a yard, dogs—Bucky Barnes hadn't anticipated cats being a thing in his life but he hadn't been opposed to the idea—and kids playing, the beach...Although it had been Long Beach, not Whistle-Stop Cove. Coney Island instead of an abandoned stretch of sand. Still, the man he'd once been had wanted a life like this once. Home, loyal pets, happy kids. A beautiful wife. Hope. Safety. Happiness.

Zola had taken that dream from him. HYDRA had smashed it into a thousand pieces. His handlers had crushed those pieces underfoot, grinding them to dust.

But Zola was dead. HYDRA was vulnerable, laid bare and defenseless before the public eye thanks to the very deadly Black Widow. And his handlers couldn't find him. He'd been here months and no one had come looking.

Sally had said there was something protected about Whistle-Stop; she'd almost mentioned something about one of her cats, Custard, somehow keeping her place safe (though honestly, if any of her five cats had possessed magical powers of some kind, he would've thought it would be Starbright, with her strangely compelling galaxy eyes).

He felt protected here. Safe. Every killer instinct honed by HYDRA's tortures told him this was a lie, that safety was an illusion...but that was HYDRA thinking. Brainwashing. Just because his instincts said a thing didn't make it true.

The Winter Soldier was a ghost, but every ghost wanted to be laid to rest.

Bucky Barnes was dead, but every dead man wanted to live.

HYDRA had left him with almost-invisible scars, but they were there. Zola had left him with enhanced abilities and a cybernetic arm that had committed thousands of atrocities.

Sally had scars, too. He'd seen it in her eyes. Heard it in her voice. She knew what it was like, to be violated, to be turned into something you didn't want to be. Maybe it was even worse for her; she'd loved the man who'd destroyed what she used to be. Zola and HYDRA had never been anything but his enemies until he'd become the Winter Soldier. Then they were his puppet masters. But he was free of them now. He would _be_ free of them. He would take back what he'd been. They would never steal from him again.

No more scars. No more self-loathing. No more deferring the dust-covered hope from his past life. Maybe he couldn't have all of the things he'd wanted—a wife, kids of his own, reuniting with Steve—but he could have some of them. Pieces of a dream. Life could start over, couldn't it? Any doubt was HYDRA thinking. Some kind of happiness wasn't impossible. Not anymore. Right?

He watched Sally scream with delight as the chill ocean sprayed over her knees and her two sons ran over to her and their baby sister, waving their arms and yelling like lunatics. Lori shrieked and waved her arms; sunlight flashed off her bright orange floaties.

Jack kicked off his shoes. Pulled off the single black glove he always wore on his vibranium hand. Shrugged off his jacket and undid his belt, letting it fall to the blanket. Stripped off his socks.

Brine pleasantly stinging his nose, seagulls and surf in his ears, he raced for the water.

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_**Author's Note:**__ yay!_


End file.
